Enough
by White Angel of Auralon
Summary: Harry Potter wasn't stupid nor naive. He grew up having to look out for himself. Why would that suddenly change in the Wizarding World? But a snake in lion's clothing wouldn't reveal itself until it was to late to stop him. He wanted freedom, and he would get it. No matter what Dumbledore, the Ministry or Voldemort might think. Alternate from Order of the Phoenix
1. Slipping from the Net

**Hi everybody, I'm back with a new story!**

 **The permanent disclaimer: As always, I don't own anything in the Harry Potter universe, I only play in JKR's sandbox.**

 **Happy reading.**

* * *

 **Slipping from the Net**

They could screw themselves, he had enough. Did they honestly think that he was an idiot? That he didn't notice things? That he didn't remember what happened year after year? Well, their bad. He was done being the good boy. Done being their whipping boy one moment and a so-called hero the next, being bribed with some useless awards and house points to just keep his mouth shut about what was actually going on behind the scenes. Well, their problem that he was a snake in lion's clothing. The Sorting Hat had known what it did when it originally wanted to send him to Slytherin. But his survival instincts told him that he would only suffer more if he was sorted there. Not to mention that the prospect of rooming with that git Malfoy for seven years was a strong incentive to not go there.

Four years he had kept his head down by now. Well, if you could call the 'adventures' he was pushed into year after year that. But, honestly, most things he did for self-preservation. He needed a number of years to actually master his magic, before he could simply leave this backwater world for greener pastures. Asking the house elves, which he had found in his first year at Hogwarts, for a safe place to train that wasn't known to the teachers, and which he could secure against being found by anybody, had been the first step and got him the incredible resource that was the Room of Requirement. The room could give him anything except food. Including a time compression function, which let him study in peace without his watchers ever realising that he was doing exactly what the old man wanted to prevent.

Getting reliable information about the wizarding world and increasing his knowledge about all kinds of magic. Hermione and Ron were spies for Dumbledore, he had figured that bit out quite quickly in his first year. Ron had originally been the only one planned to be Harry's friend, but his attitude towards learning was too abysmal to let him alone influence the supposed saviour of the wizarding world. Harry wouldn't have passed his first year after all and that couldn't be allowed to happen. People would lose trust in Dumbledore's ability to lead Hogwarts if Harry Potter of all people didn't pass his classes.

Thus, Hermione Granger was entered into the group, making sure that both boys studied enough to pass the tests, but also ensuring that Harry didn't learn enough to become a danger to Dumbledore's plans. Her attitude would make most people lose interest in studying, and in case they needed to know something, they could always ask her, making them dependent on her for the higher-level information, which Dumbledore wanted to restrict for Harry and some others. Too bad that Harry was a very good actor. He played on their expectations with his behaviour as much as it didn't harm him.

The Room of Requirement could compress time from one hour into ten minutes. Meaning, if Harry disappeared for thirty minutes, which even Ron and Hermione didn't see any problem in, especially as he normally inserted that time after Quidditch training, when nobody really controlled how long he was under the shower or which way he took to the tower, he actually got three full hours of training in. And during the nights, thanks to his invisibility cloak, he could do longer periods of time. None of his dormmates woke before seven in the morning, what with classes starting at half past eight, and normally they all went to bed at half past ten at the latest on school days. During first and second year, it had normally been earlier. Meaning, Harry had a window of opportunity between eleven and seven fifteen in the morning for sure.

The last prefect patrol returned at five past eleven after all and Harry had established early on that he went to bed early, as he always got up early too. He claimed he ran several times in the morning, supposedly to be better at Quidditch, which nobody questioned. Oliver Wood was a maniac after all and Harry was seen as always being influenced by him. Harry let people believe that, as it was a convenient excuse. As long as he actually did it regularly, which he had taken to, simply because he liked the time alone it gave him, nobody questioned him.

But having at least seven hours and thirty minutes during those nights available to his studies, meant that he got forty-five hours to do what he wanted. He could study, he could practice new spells, he could train his body with professional machines that the room supplied and get some undisturbed sleep in as well. Six hours per night were enough for him to function easily. At the Dursleys that much was something he had learned fast. The best part was, he didn't age while under time compression. Thus, nobody ever noticed that he grew much faster mentally than physically. And the Gryffindor prefects had at least two of the late patrols each week, as those were done by the sixth and seventh year prefects, while the ones in fifth year got the bracket from nine to ten o'clock in the evening for their patrols.

And nobody patrolled on Sunday evenings, when the teachers would take over the duties. Well, Harry always slipped out when the groups that got the late bracket returned to the common room, as nobody would wonder about the portrait hole being opened then. After all, his cloak didn't make him intangible. He used the earlier bracket if he was sure his dormmates wouldn't notice his absence. Thankfully the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor and not that far away from Gryffindor Tower. Sneaking there slowly only took ten minutes at most. And studying hardcore for two days, including getting his homework that he didn't do during the normal hours done, was possible, as he didn't overexert himself in normal time, which kept the manipulator happy.

By now, Harry had finished all the material that was taught for all seven years at Hogwarts for all twelve subjects that were taught, next to doing studies in subjects that were incredibly useful, but had been cut out of the curriculum, as Dumbledore didn't like it if the students became too smart or powerful for him to control. The problem with food could be solved by stocking up in the kitchen before a new trip and there were many kinds of food that didn't spoil quickly. Not to mention that the room could create a cold cupboard if he asked for it. And forty-five hours came down to not quite two days, meaning hiding the amount of food wasn't a problem at all. Fruits, cutlets, water, some salads, bread, cheese and other easy to hide things were his nourishment while he was there.

It certainly helped him grow properly. Especially as one of the first things he looked up was determining health issues, as he had never got to see a doctor, because the Dursleys didn't care about him getting his shots and otherwise made sure that nothing visible was done to him. And, for some reason, all injuries Dudley and his gang caused while they could still catch Harry, healed overnight, meaning no teacher would ever believe him if he told them about it. Not to mention that Harry suspected that the old bastard had put some spells around to prevent that social services came calling at Privet Drive.

Harry knew that Dumbledore would have interfered if something seemed amiss, therefore he simply ate as healthy as possible with the normal Hogwarts fare of food and his constant exercising explained away the rest of his good physical condition. His grades in class were mostly above average, but not in the area of the top ten of his year. Well, it would change for his OWLs this year. He didn't care anymore about playing nice. He had reached a level in his magic, where he could show the wizarding world the bird. Little known bit of information, as soon as you had sat the OWLs and had got the results, you could apply to sit the NEWTs in the classes that you had passed.

And Harry would pass them all and then use the skills he had got in languages to get the hell out of Great Britain. Passing the NEWTs was one of the old and still valid ways of being irrevocably acknowledged as an adult. It equalled being emancipated, but nobody had to approve the transit. And a law forced the Ministry to allow anybody that applied to sit NEWT exams with proof of the passed OWLs to take them within two weeks. They got that long to arrange for the examiners, but otherwise they couldn't stop it happening.

Harry knew that Dumbledore would try preventing it, but any student using that law, could also demand an oath of silence from the examiners in the letter with the request to take those exams to not reveal anything about it happening until all results were determined and filed. Meaning, it would be too late to stop the student. It was another old law, originating in a time when rivalling wizarding families weren't above murder of promising members of enemy families when they went to the Ministry to sit their exams. What none of the students except Harry, and he only found out from his additional studies in the Room of Requirement, knew was that the trace that was placed on the wands a student could buy at any wandmaker had a second, much more important function.

The trace worked through the wand of the student and in case of children that lived in the muggle world, it was always assumed they did the magic, except the signature of a different wand was noticed to be the one having used the spell. Which was why Dobby got him into trouble over his hovering charm on that stupid pudding. It hadn't been a spell done with a registered wand that had lost the trace already.

The second function of wands that still had an active trace was that they couldn't perform any lethal dark magic. It was lost knowledge outside of the wandmakers and a few other individuals. Harry suspected that Dumbledore knew, as headmaster of Hogwarts. This had one simple reason. While teachers were sworn to not kill their students while they were at school, other students didn't have those restrictions. Meaning, the hotheads and children from dark and ruthless families needed to be kept under control. It was a known fact that a wand that was matched to the wizard's or witch's magic worked much better than an inherited wand. Which meant, all wands were bought for a child when it started school, with some exceptions of really poor families.

But those mostly didn't have the education to know the lethal kind of dark spells anyway to abuse that loophole. Thus, Potions or enchanted items remained as the two ways to kill another student and the school never stocked up ingredients that could be used to brew poisons outside of the personal stock of the Potions master. Who had to take all measures needed to secure those ingredients. And Snape, Harry knew, had impeccable wards around those cupboards, meaning not even Hermione in their second year, when she suggested her hare-brained polyjuice potion plan to find out if Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin, would have got in there. The ingredients she had taken weren't that dangerous after all, just uncommon and expensive. And, if Dumbledore wasn't playing his games, the wards would detect dangerous objects and stop them from passing through the wards. But he did play his games, thus the diary could enter the school.

Harry had learned that the trace was activated on the students when they rode over the lake. Until that point in time, it was a passive enchantment, as nobody wanted to risk a child being overlooked in activating the trace in the past. And, back then, wand-making had been a much more popular trade and not all wandmakers were reliable to properly activate every single trace on new wands. There had been cases of some of them being bribed to 'forget' doing the activation charm. Thus, Hogwarts got the duty for that part. There was a ward around the lake that latched onto the trace on every single first-year that crossed the lake and activated the enchantment. Well, those with new wands at least. It tuned into the wand signature, connected it to the magical signature of the child and was then registered at the files that the heads of houses had for their students with the decision of the Sorting Hat. This ward was the sole reason why all the first-years were taken to the school via the boats and not the carriages, no matter the weather.

It was an arrangement that the founders themselves had set up and thus had enchanted the Sorting Hat to do the deed after they were gone. For those with family wands, the heads of the houses were meant to remedy the lack of trace during the first week, but Harry was quite sure that they didn't do that. After all, the secondary reasons for the trace weren't known to most these days anymore. And it would mean you had to check all student files after the sorting, which he doubted people like McGonagall would do, having too much work already. There was a spell, which Harry had learned from his studies, that allowed a teacher to reactivate a previously deactivated trace on a wand. The trace was always deactivated on the seventeenth birthday of a child, which was another enchantment, which was placed on the student files, and which was linked to their files at the Ministry of Magic. It was automatic, and nobody could prevent it happening.

Thus, at Hogwarts, (nearly) no student could kill another one. Cursing them, injuring them, playing pranks and other things were definitely possible, but killing didn't work. The oaths to not kill any students were renewed at the beginning of each school year with all teachers. This way, nothing fell through due to oversight. In fact, the school wouldn't acknowledge a teacher that hadn't sworn that oath. It still left them enough leeway to be unpleasant, case in point, Snape. Harry suspected that Quirrell had sworn the oath, but the possession of Voldemort had then screwed up the magical signature of the oath, which was why Quirrell could attempt to kill Harry with magic during the year. After all, the cursing of his broom was done with magic, even if the attempt down in the mirror room was done with his bare hands.

At the Ministry, this protection didn't exist and most students taking their exams there were home-schooled. It didn't make sense to have a trace on them when they used magic at their homes regularly, another thing children weren't told about, they just got informed that the trace was universal and that the Ministry would notice if they used magic over the times when they weren't in school or with their tutors. Thus, the oath that could be demanded to not make important heirs to targets of rivals. If Harry could have got away with it, he would have asked to sit his OWLs early as well, but nobody would have allowed it. Contrary to the NEWTs, there wasn't a law forcing the Ministry to accommodate the wishes of the student.

The school or the tutors did the application for the OWLs whenever they thought the student was ready for them. Normally that was after five years of schooling, though some tutors were known to do it earlier.

Well, this year would be the last one Harry spent at Hogwarts, and he wouldn't lift a finger for anybody. He would do his thing and nothing more. He had tried to tell Fudge about Voldemort's return and the result was a smear campaign in the Daily Prophet. Well, if the wizarding world wanted to be idiots, he wouldn't help them. And neither would he continue being a good boy. Being a hero was overrated in any way. It didn't pay off. This summer, he hadn't got any decent letters from his so-called friends. While he knew that they were actually spies for Dumbledore, they should have made more of an effort to stay in contact with him.

He would use the fact that nobody cared about including him in anything. He had told his aunt and uncle that if they wanted to get rid of him for the summer, all they had to do was signing a form that allowed him to join a pathfinder camp, for which he would pay himself. When asked where he got the money, Harry had told them that Sirius had sent him the money, wanting him to have a nice summer break for a change. And while the money would have been enough to pay for three weeks of a really nice vacation, which had been Sirius' original intention according to Harry's made-up tale, it also was enough to let Harry go to camp for six weeks. Harry would always choose the option that got him away for the longest period of time, meaning that he only spent one week at Privet Drive before being ready to catch the bus to the camp.

Vernon had been very happy to get rid of Harry early. He had even assisted in getting Harry's luggage into the car without anybody realising what he was doing. Harry knew that Dumbledore would place guards around Privet Drive. Well, they could try finding him after he was at camp. The Dursleys didn't know where the camp was located after all, didn't care about it at all in fact. The camp was in Sweden, far away from any influence the old man had to ruin another of Harry's summer breaks. The Order would probably search in Great Britain, assuming that Harry didn't have a passport to leave the country. And Harry knew about that, as he had read old copies of the Daily Prophet that claimed the Order of the Phoenix as the opponents that fought with Professor Dumbledore bravely against You-Know-Who. So, who but his own private vigilante group to guard his precious weapon?

* * *

Harry had been left at the meeting point for the campers in London. Pathfinder camps were mostly for those that belonged to the various groups all over England, but you could get in without that if there were still open spots for the camps. You would have to adhere to the pathfinder code while being there and follow their typical activities, but that was fully alright in Harry's books. His passport had been acquired when Harry had been thirteen, thanks to paying the goblins for one that would pass in both worlds, and which would update its validity and photo automatically whenever the original date passed. It had cost him twenty galleons, meaning one thousand Pounds, but it was his ticket to freedom, so he didn't care.

The bus that would first take the group to Dover, and then with a ferry over to Calais in France, was currently loaded by a group that wore pathfinder uniforms. The spot Harry had got had been advertised in the local paper in Little Whinging and Harry hadn't hesitated to call the organisers and get his inquiry if there were still open spots confirmed. They had three spots open for non-pathfinders and he had directly booked a spot for himself. Anything else was done within the next two days. Including a shopping trip with his aunt, who disguised Harry buying himself a few fitting muggle clothes as buying normal groceries and clothes for Dudley. Harry was used to playing pack mule, so nobody would think anything strange at him going shopping with his aunt.

He was to hand in his signed form to the adults in charge when he got onto the bus. Otherwise they wouldn't have been sure to get everything done with the mail on time. Not when there was only one week left for late campers. Harry knew that the journey would be long, but he looked forward to just being one of the group, not famous and certainly not reviled by everybody whenever they felt like it. He walked over to the group that was loading the bus.

"Good morning, could you perhaps tell me where to hand my paperwork for the trip in?" Harry asked.

"Sure thing, we set up a table on the other side of the bus. I'm Jake, one of the leaders for the camp. What's your name?" The brown-haired man asked kindly.

"Harry Potter. I was a late sign up after I read the ad in the paper," Harry introduced himself.

"Ah, yes. We didn't have enough pathfinders from the various groups to fill all spots and offered them otherwise. And, ready to experience pathfinder life in the woods of Sweden?" Jake asked with a smile.

"Certainly. It definitely beats dealing with my cousin, who was forced onto a diet by his school's healer. He's very grumpy when he's hungry," Harry told Jake, not lying, but also not giving away too much.

"Ouch, well, good to have you with us, Harry. How long will you stay at camp?"

"Six weeks," Harry answered.

"Wow, a long time for a first-time camper, but I think you will like it," Jake stated.

"I think so too," Harry nodded.

"Well, you can leave your trunk with us, we will put it into the storage area of the bus. Just take the things for the journey with you and hand the papers that we asked for in at the table."

"Will do, thank you, Jake," Harry replied and went around the front of the bus. There was the aforementioned table, about five families currently waiting to hand over their children's documents.

The confirmation letter he got two days after the call he made included a list of what each camper needed, from insect repellent to hiking shoes. The leaders of the trip would collect the passports of all campers, the International Certificate of Vaccination and a camp pass, which informed them about things like allergies, dietary needs and gave general permission to participate in all kinds of activities like going swimming, learning to sailboard and the like. Harry fully planned to do everything the camp offered. This was his first ever vacation and he would enjoy it. He had to wait for a few minutes before he could hand over everything that the team would need and then was told that he could look for a seat up in the bus. The bus from London could seat seventy persons. It was a double decker bus with full climate control functions, which was very neat.

On a long journey like the one they would go on, it would take over half a day to reach their destination, what with having to travel through France and Germany before they could get to the ferry that would set them over to Goteborg in Sweden, it would be an immense help.

* * *

The Order of the Phoenix was in uproar. Nobody had seen Harry Potter for three days at his relatives' house and they had sent Alastor Moody to check the house with his eye to find out if he was locked up inside or if something else was going on. To the immense displeasure of Dumbledore, Harry wasn't anywhere on the premises. It had led to him confronting Petunia Dursley, which she didn't like at all and made it loudly known, but fact was, Harry Potter had decided to ignore his instructions and had gone onto a camping trip with a muggle organisation called pathfinders.

Dumbledore was very unhappy about it. Summers were meant to drive home to Harry that he would never have it as good in the muggle world as in the wizarding world. The unpleasantness of his relatives ensured that perspective. Some questions to Hermione Granger had told him that the pathfinders were an acknowledged organisation that practiced living in harmony with nature and helping people. At least he could accept their behaviour for influencing Harry. The boy needed to play the hero until it was time for him to confront Voldemort and die.

The horcrux in Harry's scar didn't allow for any other result. But Dumbledore didn't want Harry to think that the muggle world could offer him a better life than the wizarding world, should he, against all odds, manage to survive. There was a chance, after Voldemort had used Harry's blood in his resurrection ritual, that the blood would work as an anchor for Harry himself. It all depended on the order of destruction of the horcruxes. Should one horcrux remain when Harry was killed by Voldemort, the anchor of Harry's blood in Voldemort would perhaps allow him to not cross over. But there couldn't be too much of Voldemort's soul remaining in form of horcruxes to overpower Harry's soul, thus he considered the best chance for the scenario to work if Voldemort was down to one horcrux, at the most two and then only the later ones that didn't hold as big pieces as the older ones. Thankfully the biggest one, the diary, was already destroyed. The whole scenario working out perfectly was just too remote a possibility. If Harry wasn't prepared to die against Voldemort, it wouldn't work. Tricky thing soul magic.

But, as Harry had beaten the odds against him several times by now, he wouldn't exclude the possibility of his survival. And in that case, the wizarding world couldn't afford Harry to not love it. He was too powerful to turn into another Tom Riddle. No, better to not have proper ties to the muggle world, even if the wizarding world had many flaws, which Dumbledore liked to play with to reach his goals. If he wanted the wizarding world to continue like it had before, without people realising that they only acted on his pulling of the strings, which he wanted to continue even after his death, which normally would be several years away, after all, wizards lived much longer than muggles thanks to their magic, but you never knew while fighting a war, he needed a successor that continued his work.

Harry was perfectly suited for that, but he needed to believe in the infallibility of Albus Dumbledore. And for that, he couldn't be allowed to find out too many things. The best manipulations were after all those that weren't found out. The main problem now was finding Harry and getting him back under control. It wouldn't do for him to develop independence.

The Order was looking for any kind of muggle camp to see if Harry was there. They couldn't be too obvious though, as they had to make sure to not break the Statute of Secrecy. Why couldn't the dratted boy do as he was told and stay put at his relatives?

* * *

Harry got off the bus at their destination after a long trip with both the bus and a ferry. At least they had had the chance to walk around a bit while they were on the ferry. That had been nice, and the duty-free shop had allowed him to buy a few things that he liked. It was a good thing that he had made sure to have more than enough money for both worlds. While the goblins had been confused why he wanted to have half of the payment for the basilisk sale in gold bullion, they had easily done it. Gold was gold after all. But gold bullion allowed Harry to sell it in the muggle world and get muggle currency for it, contrary to the screwed-up exchange course from galleons to Pounds.

According to Corpnik, the Potter account manager, the Ministry set the exchange rates, which didn't reflect the true value of the wizarding currency. One galleon equalled fifty Pounds, but the Ministry set the rate to five Pounds. Probably because nobody wanted to bother with finding out the true purchase value of the currency. One more reason why the goblins weren't on good terms with the Ministry of Magic, next to the Bagman problem, what with him not paying his gambling debts.

Harry had known that, as the one to kill the basilisk in single combat, he owned the corpse and could sell it without having to give anybody else a share. Something else Dumbledore never even mentioned. Harry had by now sold a tenth of the gold bullion he had got, as he had noticed that the price for gold was continually rising during the past years. It was much smarter to only sell the amount he needed to be fluid in the muggle world easily and wait for better prices to sell the rest. And he could store the gold in his vault like he did all his other valuable possessions. Though he didn't use the trust vault he had for that.

The trust vault was sadly overseen by Dumbledore, who had managed to gain magical guardianship over Harry. It was a reason Harry needed to keep a low profile until he could test out of school with his NEWTs. Dumbledore couldn't be allowed to notice his plans before it was already too late. His real money was in the former personal vault of his mother, which the goblins had transferred to him, but officially it would continue under his mother's maiden name until he came of age and could change it. And his mother had added him to have access to the account in case of her death. She had kept about one thousand galleons in there, which Harry had profited from. It was by far not as much as in the Potter family vault, but it was money Dumbledore didn't know about and couldn't control therefore.

His muggle currency was kept at Barclay's Bank, for which he had visited a branch in London. It wasn't too far away from the hidden entrance of the Leaky Cauldron, which was how he had decided upon it. He could easily slip out of the bar and get some things done in the muggle world, when he was staying there before his third year. He had been very busy during those days. Thankfully, after giving the goblins a recording of his parseltongue command to get the Chamber of Secrets open, they took care of harvesting the basilisk. They got a ten percent share of the sales, which, considering the size of the monster, was much more than they normally got with fixed rates of the work.

And, as he wouldn't have known how to get this done, it was much more efficient. He didn't mind letting them have that share, as they would also work on maximising the profit that the sale brought in. A win-win situation.

Next to that, he had figured out that in highly magical places the Ministry couldn't track who used magic. There was simply too much interference. The spell he had used first was a confundus charm on the papers that were needed for his opening of a bank account. He wasn't of age after all and needed permission of his guardian normally. Faking the signature was easy, he had been doing that since he was seven and got punished by the Dursleys for his report card, which was simply much better than Dudley's. After that he got creative and simply showed his aunt and uncle a copy of Dudley's report card with his name on top, while his real one, which the teacher wanted signed by his aunt or uncle, got a fake signature and was kept hidden otherwise. He wasn't stupid enough to attract attention in class after all, which Dudley would have complained about again.

If not for the Dursleys complaining if he simply took off, and he couldn't be sure that he might have to stay there for a few more days after his fifth year at Hogwarts, he would have done the same for his permission for the pathfinder camp. But this way, nobody could complain and get him punished for his actions, simply because he was acting in the muggle world. And there, his muggle relatives, thanks to Dumbledore, were his legal guardians until he was of age. The Ministry of Magic would accept that his uncle had given permission for Harry to go camping for six weeks and nothing could be done about it otherwise. No matter how much Dumbledore might try to regain control over Harry by pulling some strings.

And to make sure he wasn't found, he had sent Hedwig to stay with Sirius, the one person he somewhat trusted. Not fully, he wouldn't tell him his plans, as, thanks to Azkaban, his mind was simply too damaged to keep information fully secret, especially around Legilimens like Snape and Dumbledore. No, Sirius got a letter, in which Harry explained that he was at a pathfinder camp for six weeks, simply to not have the tedious situation at the Dursleys escalate, citing that it had already been a problem last year, what with the Aunt Marge incident, and only the threat of Sirius coming to hex them into oblivion made them comply.

Harry reasoned to not risk that, what with Sirius not constantly being on the news anymore, they would return to their really nasty behaviour, by getting out of their way. Sirius was told he wanted him to look after Hedwig, as he couldn't take her with him to a muggle camp, and when he would be back. No location, supposedly in case the owl was intercepted, something the first letter from Ron and Hermione had claimed as the reason for them not being able to write properly, and only the date when he would be back at Privet Drive, next to the question if it would be possible to spend the rest of summer with him. The Order, which Harry knew Sirius was a part of, would have to work with that information. And there were too many pathfinder organisations in Great Britain to find out which one had Harry as one of the campers. By the time they might manage, it would be far too late to do anything about it.

Right now, Harry inhaled the fresh air and stretched his muscles. The long sitting in the bus was really taxing.

"Alright everybody. Please listen!" Jake called out and the pathfinders quickly built two lines, with Harry simply adapting and joining them, "We will unload the bus orderly. There are four compartments on each side that need to be unloaded. One person will pull the luggage from the compartment, another takes it over there," He pointed to a spot under a tree, "and leaves it there until we have everything out. Sort the things into trunks, travelling bags and equipment, so that we can take it to the camp easier. We are the first group to arrive up here, so we are on our own until the next one arrives. They are scheduled to be here in about three hours. Our camp is about ten minutes on foot from here, but the bus can't go further."

The pathfinders nodded.

"We will build lines for each compartment to carry the luggage over. It doesn't matter whose luggage you grab and carry, we will sort that later. For now, you take one piece you are handed and take it over to the point I showed you. For the big metal crates, you will have to carry them with two people, as they are heavy. When one person has his piece of luggage, the next one steps forward and so on, until the bus is empty," Jake continued.

The group set to work and within half an hour everything that had been loaded into the bus was out again. Jake put three boys that he seemingly knew from before in charge of watching over their luggage, while the others found their respective luggage and carried it, following Jake on a small dirt path into the forest. Harry was very glad that his trunk only needed him to push some magic through the handle to become much lighter. It was a subtle way to make things easier for him without any muggles being able to spot discrepancies.

The camp was nice, Harry decided. It was clear that the spots inside this forest were regularly used by the pathfinders, as there were some basic necessary buildings available to them. They would sleep in tents, all specially treated to work in any kind of weather, but things like bathrooms, showers and a kitchen were in solid buildings. Seemingly the others were used to this already, as they had started setting up the tents immediately. And they were big tents.

"Hey, do you know what to do, Harry?" Patrick, the boy he had sat next to in the bus asked.

"Not really, I only went camping once, and the tents weren't this large then," Harry admitted.

"Then just listen to us others, it's not that difficult if you know what you do," Patrick assured him, "Hector, Harry doesn't have experience in setting up tents of this size, can you take him into your group?"

"Sure thing, Patrick. Come over here, Harry and hold this pole up. We will take care of connecting others to it," Hector called, and Harry did just that.

They needed some time, but after a while eight tents that allowed ten people to sleep in them were set up. Harry had learned that the tents would stay here for the whole time the pathfinder camp took place, which was the whole remainder of the summer break in England. The reasoning was simple. The pathfinder organisation earned a good part of the money they needed with these camps. For each week, they made a net profit of twenty Pounds per camper. Not too much per person, but in total it allowed them to pay for the infrastructure back in their home country for the rest of the year.

And many teenagers liked going into camps like this one, especially as they offered the left-over spots to anybody that was willing to accept the pathfinder code while he or she was there. There would be about one hundred and forty teenagers at the same time, with twenty adults looking after them. Two of them were the camp cooks, even if there would be groups of helpers each day, otherwise it wouldn't work out. Most campers would stay two to three weeks. Harry was a rare exception with his six weeks. But during the journey, he had explained his reasoning to the others and they understood that he would rather get away from unpleasant relatives in a way nobody could complain about.

While the teenagers were busy setting up the tents, the adults checked the buildings. They made sure that the gas containers were full and connected to the stove, the bathrooms were cleaned and had basic supplies like toilet paper available for a few days and that the tables and benches for the mess tent that would arrive with the next group were clean and in good repair. Normally that should be the case, but they had to check to give a report about the state they found their camping space in, as they had a Swedish firm under contract that prepared the camp buildings before they arrived.

* * *

The camp was great in Harry's opinion. He was just one of the group, one that still learned how pathfinders went about their day. He honestly didn't mind doing things in certain ways. He had a lot of fun in learning things like following animal trails in the forest, doing a survival tour, where they got a compass, a map and some provisions and were then left at some point a good distance away from the camp to find their way back. The others in his group told him that it was a normal thing for pathfinder camps to happen. It was actually one of the highlights. They were without adult supervision and the distance could always be crossed within two days at most, normally less.

The others were old hats at making fire without matches or lighters and Harry found out that he wasn't bad at fishing at all. The most of all, he enjoyed the peace of the area. The closest town was twenty kilometres away, it was where the group got their food from with the van that had come with the second group on their first day. That meant, the only people around were the ones from the camp and as long as you didn't go too far away, you could easily get some privacy. And the lake close to the camp, it was only three minutes on foot away, had some neat spots where nobody could see you, if you wanted to be alone.

It definitely helped Harry clear his mind of all the problems back in Great Britain. He would enjoy this vacation to the fullest. And the group also planned to visit some of the large cities in Sweden, like the capitol Stockholm and then Goteborg. Especially the girls were looking forward to going shopping there.

Each day, the group got up at eight in the morning, with breakfast being served at eight thirty. The group that had kitchen duty for the day, there were always ten helpers each day for the kitchen team, was woken up half an hour before all others. Harry liked that the menu was very versatile. They had English dishes, Swedish ones, Italian ones and German ones, just to list a few. Considering that they had limited means to cook, it was impressive. Harry also learned a lot of popular songs that were regularly sung at a campfire, next to several games that others had brought with them. Next to the supply from the organisation. It was nice to play games like monopoly or clue in the evenings, when the normal activities of the day were over.

Of course, a night excursion couldn't be missing from the program. The adults had set up a game at night, where the group was split into teams of five each and they had to find ten stations overall and solve the tasks given to them there. Be it singing one of the songs from the song book the group had from memory to doing as many push-ups in thirty seconds as possible. It was great fun and, in the end, the best teams got prizes.

Harry was very glad that he had taken the chance when it turned up. He knew that back at the Dursleys he wouldn't have been able to relax like this. It would give him strength for the inevitable inquisition back when he returned to England.

* * *

 **Until next weekend.**


	2. Dudley Demented

**Thanks to everybody that reviewed and favoured this story already. I have already finished this one and will post a chapter each weekend, so you can look forward to it. A slight warning, this chapter mentions drug abuse, but nothing graphic. I want to keep the story to T-rating. Now on with the story, and I admit, I borrowed the chapter title from JKR :).**

* * *

 **Dudley Demented**

Petunia and Vernon Dursley sat in front of a hospital room, in which their only son and his best friend Piers Polkiss were currently treated. They didn't know what had happened, but the two boys hadn't returned home one evening. Petunia, being worried about Dudley, had called Mrs Polkiss to find out if Dudley was perhaps still at her home, but Mrs Polkiss had been surprised, thinking that the boys were at the Dursleys. While both sides were set to find out what the boys were up to, and why they had lied to their parents about their whereabouts, they hadn't been prepared to find them and the other two boys from their group, Malcolm Whitmore and Jeremy Stone, lying unresponsive on the ground.

Nothing they or the later-arrived ambulance did could make the boys wake up. They had been taken to the nearest hospital and the doctors were trying to find out what had happened. It was strange, there were no obvious injuries on the boys' bodies, but they simply didn't react to any kind of stimulant. All parents were terribly worried about their sons, especially as the doctors had never seen anything like this and they had been told that after the first examination and attempts to bring them back to consciousness, they would have to call in some specialist.

Finally, after four hours of horrible waiting and not knowing anything, one of the doctors left the room.

"Are you the Dursleys and the Polkiss?" He asked.

"Yes. Please, doctor, what's wrong with my son?" Petunia pleaded.

"Come with me, it's better to talk somewhere undisturbed," The Doctor told them, and the group went to an office on another corridor one floor up.

Everybody took seats and the doctor looked at the parents.

"Alright, I ask you to stay as calm as possible, I don't have good news," The doctor stated.

"Oh, my god!" Mrs Polkiss wailed, her husband holding her hand, "What's wrong with my son?"

"We aren't fully sure, as not all symptoms fit illnesses that we are familiar with, but we found some things that can begin to explain the situation somewhat. Blood tests have shown that both your sons have been taking drugs," The doctor told them.

"Drugs? But we never noticed anything!" Mr Polkiss protested.

"Dudley is a good boy, he wouldn't do drugs!" Petunia added.

"The blood tests don't lie," The doctor sighed, "So far, both boys that I was part of examining show no significant brain activity. I don't know yet if my colleagues will find similar things, but as you reported that they have been friends since they were primary school students, I think that some group pressure was also involved. These days, we sadly find more and more teenagers that are approached by drug dealers, who offer them to test popular drugs that have cool names for a bargain. After the teenagers have become addicted, they basically exploit them for any money they have. Many of the dependant teens become criminal to pay for their drugs. And they become very good at hiding things from their families.

"We could determine both marihuana and something else in both your sons' blood. Hair samples are still being tested. Our current suspicions are that a new drug, one that we aren't aware of yet, which is very much possible, as the dealers constantly design new ones to increase their profit, was taken by them and damaged their brains, which led to the blackout. If they recently got it, which we suspect, they might have taken it together at the same time, which explains why they all succumbed to the effect at the same time."

"Oh no, my poor baby!" Petunia wailed.

"Doctor, what can be done?" Vernon asked.

"We are waiting for a specialist that is more knowledgeable in brain damage than we are to inform us if he has open spots at the hospital he works at. We are a normal hospital after all. But currently, we can't say anything about the development of the boys. We couldn't identify the drug that is probably responsible so far after all and we have sent blood samples to a specialised lab that is more up to date on drugs that are on the market. We will do all we can to stabilise the boys' condition and possibly improve it, but until we have the final results, we can't tell you more, I'm sorry," The Doctor said.

"You have to save them!" Mrs Polkiss pleaded, crying.

"We will do all we can, Madam. It would help us a lot, if you could search your boys' rooms and possible places where they regularly hung out to find out if you can find a sample of the drugs they took. We only found some joints on their persons when we had some nurses search for them. Any information we can get could save their lives. The situation is very serious, but I guess I don't have to tell you that. Right now, their bodies haven't taken more damage than to the brain, somewhat short-circuiting them, but if the situation goes on for too long, it might lead to the brain dying, and then only machines would keep them alive. Please, we need all the information you can give us. I will show you to an office where a policeman will take your statements of what you might have noticed, but which you didn't connect to your sons taking drugs. Perhaps this will also help us find the dealers," The doctor told them soberly.

The four parents broke down, hearing how serious the situation of their children was. Well, nobody liked hearing that their sons were in lethal danger. Because that was what was happening right now.

* * *

Arabella Figg was listening to the newest gossip that was spread around the neighbourhood. She had gone shopping and had noticed the neighbour of the Polkiss, who she knew was best friends with Dudley Dursley, Harry's cousin.

"And I tell you, I always thought something was off about the boy. I always thought the rumours about the group reeking of something strange had to mean something," One woman said.

"Yes. And it would also explain what my son told me about being afraid to go to the playground whenever they were around. I always believed it was just the Potter boy that was a no-good hooligan, what with Petunia sending him to St. Brutus, but to think that her own son would take drugs. Well, now she got the results," Another woman scoffed.

"Well, kind of makes me wonder how she raised those two. The Potter boy's parents being no-good drunks aside, the boy lived with her since he was a baby. His parents couldn't have taught him that much. My daughter certainly didn't remember much from the time she was a baby, if anything. Perhaps some unconscious things, but not how to behave and things like that," The first woman pointed out.

"You have a good point there. I mean, why wouldn't Petunia and Vernon have made sure to teach both boys proper behaviour? They had them at their home for the whole year until they went to secondary school. And while Petunia always complained about the Potter boy, I wonder where he would have learned his bad behaviour if not from them? Isn't Vernon prone to temper tantrums?" The second woman asked.

Arabella tried keeping quiet. She wondered what had brought up this shift in perception.

"I heard that too. But even if, I wouldn't want to be in their positions. I mean, all four boys of the group unconscious at the hospital, most likely brain damage from drugs. I have never heard of these symptoms, but I think everybody knows the risks of bad drugs destroying the body and killing the one taking them. I will definitely make sure that my children will know how dangerous drugs are and that they stay away from them. I can only pity the parents. Nobody wants to lose a child like that, if the rumours about their brains possibly dying and them then being declared braindead are true," The first woman commented.

"Yes, I can't imagine the pain they must feel. I only hope the police catches the dealers. And my children won't be allowed out after dark anymore until they do. And I will tell them not to trust anything a stranger gives them. I already did so, but probably a refresher with the current situation of those boys will make the dangers much clearer," The second woman agreed.

Arabella had heard enough. The symptoms that the women described sounded horribly like the effects of the dementors kiss. While it was good that the muggles thought that drugs were the reason, she had to report this to Dumbledore. If the dementors had joined You-Know-Who, they were in deep trouble already.

* * *

The Order of the Phoenix listened to the report Arabella Figg, who had been keeping an eye on Harry Potter since he was an infant, was making. The thought that dementors had possibly kissed some innocent muggle boys was very worrisome.

"Thank you for the report, Arabella. Do you know at which hospital the boys are treated?" Dumbledore asked.

"No, I know that they started at the hospital in Greater Whinging, but Petunia told me, when I went to give my condolences for the bad situation and asked if I could do anything to help her, that Dudley would be transferred to a different hospital today, one much farther away and they didn't know yet which one had free spots, where they have doctors specialised in drug abuse. She was very distraught," Arabella answered.

"And rightfully. I can't imagine having one of my children in that situation. And she can't even know that it probably were dementors, being a muggle and all," Molly Weasley commented.

"We need to be sure if it were dementors and for that we need to send somebody that can tell into that hospital. Can you find out which hospital those boys are in now?" Moody asked.

"I can try. Probably it will be gossiped about soon. Nothing stays secret for long in the neighbourhood, especially nothing this big," Arabella nodded.

"What will this mean for Harry?" Remus asked, "I mean, one of the victims is his cousin."

"I am not sure, Remus. The wards are anchored to Petunia, so it wouldn't influence them, but she might react adversely to her son being harmed while Harry wasn't," Dumbledore sighed.

"At least Harry wasn't close by when the dementors came. While he can defend himself, it would have caused major trouble with Fudge, had he used a patronus charm," Remus sighed.

"Quite true," Sirius nodded, "One good thing of him taking off like he did. Next to not having to suffer from the muggles' nastiness."

Sirius was one of the few people that didn't blame his godson for leaving when he had the chance. He had got the letter that Hedwig had delivered to him and understood that there were cases when somebody couldn't stand his family and looked for any way to not have to spend much time with them. And, which he had also pointed out to Dumbledore and his supporters in the Order, nobody had told Harry about the wards, meaning he couldn't know the consequences of him not powering them up. It had shocked many, who hadn't thought about that, but it lessened their criticism of Harry somewhat. Not that they were happy about him leaving without telling anybody beforehand.

Though many others also wondered why it was allowed that the muggles were that nasty to Harry, who was their world's saviour. It was a conflict that hadn't been resolved so far.

"We will need to relocate Harry here once he returns from his camping trip. As far as Tonks could find out, the group is somewhere in another country. But the offices are closed during the summer break, so we can't ask any of the officials where the group Harry signed up for went to. And we can't search all of Europe," Kingsley pointed out, "If the wards are to hold until next summer, we can't risk any escalation with Harry's relatives, which will happen, simply because they are plagued by grief over their son. Understandably so."

"Yes, that will be the only way to go for us," Dumbledore acknowledged, "And once he is here, we can make it clear to Harry why he has to return to his relatives next summer. By then, his relatives should have managed to deal with the horrible loss, and perhaps this tragedy will bring them closer. I probably should have explained the importance of the wards, but with having to quickly reassemble the Order and first measures against Voldemort winning more supporters and power, it didn't come to me that I hadn't done so in the past. It wasn't that important for Harry to know after all. In the past, when Voldemort was still a wraith, Harry going onto such a trip, as long as the wards were powered up before, wouldn't have been as dangerous."

Dumbledore knew how to portrait himself as the one only looking out for Harry's welfare.

"Well, no sense to cry over spilt potions," Arthur stated, "When Harry arrives, I will make sure to show him the error of his ways. But honestly, from a normal point of view, he didn't do anything wrong. He asked his guardians for permission to go to the camp and they gave it. While we might not like their decision, it was their right to do it."

Sirius nodded. Arthur was much more pragmatic than his wife.

"Just with the current danger to him personally, he should have asked our permission as well," Molly grumbled.

"Do you honestly think he would have done so, what with the way he was treated as soon as he had left the Hogwarts Express?" Sirius asked with a raised eyebrow, "Face it Molly, thanks to the information embargo, which was enacted against Harry, supposedly because owls could be intercepted, but, with the guards around, it wouldn't have been difficult to hand Harry letters from his friends, he had no reason to believe that we would actually listen to his concerns. While you may have been nice to him in the past, how often has he seen you? Three weeks before his second year at Hogwarts, then two days at the Leaky Cauldron before his third year and one and a half weeks before his fourth year. He stayed at Hogwarts the whole year, never retuning for the breaks, simply because his relatives are horrible.

"And the only adults he spent more time with, well, they failed him too many times already, meaning the teachers at Hogwarts. Year after year he had to save the school and they never had his back when he needed them. And I can't exclude myself either, as I'm on the run, thanks to the Ministry not doing its job properly. I wish I could have spent much more time with Harry, but I couldn't, therefore, Harry had to rely just on his own. There is no reason why he would suddenly believe that anything had changed about that situation."

Many looked uncomfortable at this revelation. Especially Minerva McGonagall. She was Harry's head of house and she had failed more than the others. Snape, well, he was an arse, but he wasn't directly responsible for Harry at school. While most wished he would finally behave like an adult and not let the grudge against James Potter and his friends fester and transfer it onto the only child from the group, nobody would expect him to perform the job that Harry's head of house should be doing.

"How will we contact Harry, and would it be wise to let him return to Privet Drive at all this year?" Remus asked.

"What do you mean?" Molly asked, "He would need his things for school, right?"

"The point Remus is hinting at is, with the Dursleys currently distraught over the fate of their son, they could simply lash out against Harry without provocation," Kingsley explained, "In any case, we should have somebody go to Privet Drive and get Harry's things to safety. People that are frightened, for whatever reason, tend to act illogically. They might vent their feelings against Harry and his things."

"I hadn't thought about that," Molly admitted.

"I think we should use a distraction to get them out of the house or find out when the Dursleys are going to be away to visit their son at the new hospital. Then we can enter the place, get all of Harry's things and leave again. Nobody needs to meet with them, a note of us taking the stuff away without wanting to bother them in their current situation would suffice," Dumbledore pondered.

Nobody in the Order considered that breaking and entering the house while the Dursleys were absent wouldn't go over well with them at all. But wizards rarely considered the feelings of muggles properly.

* * *

Harry returned from his first-ever vacation very relaxed and happy. He had learned so many things and made several new friends, who he would try staying in contact with, even if it would be difficult. But that was what ingenuity was for. Getting a letter to a muggle mail box to be delivered to his friends wouldn't be too hard. And he was sure that Dobby would be more than happy to do that if he paid him for it. Popping to a mail box when it was dark wouldn't be difficult for the house elf after all. He would just have to get a post-office box for their return letters. He had told them he would find out the exact address of his school and tell them in the first letter he sent them. Telling them that the school had a collective post office box for all students wouldn't be too strange.

He had a number of things left to do, among them going to Gringotts to get his school trunk back. He hadn't been stupid enough to leave anything of value at the Dursleys after all. He knew too well that it only needed a small thing to set them off and his things would have been burned by them. Even if Harry didn't have anything to do with it. While Harry was there, he could make sure that nothing happened, but otherwise, well, he didn't trust them as far as he could throw his aunt Petunia without magic.

When the group had separated at the place where the journey had also started for him, he wondered how to best contact Sirius. He didn't plan to go back to Privet Drive after all. It wouldn't do to worsen his mood, now that he had finally worked through several issues he had. Like the death of Cedric Diggory in front of him. To his surprise there had been one member of the team that led the camp that worked as a psychologist for his main job and he had managed to help Harry work through his problems. While many things hadn't been explainable without telling about magic, others were. Like his growing up unloved and abused by his relatives and how the school turned against him whenever something about him hit the rumour mill.

He had covered his fame with saying that his family on his father's side was very well off and he stood to inherit everything when he came of age and therefore everybody observed him constantly. He didn't mention the tournament but said that he and Cedric had been together at a place when somebody had attempted to kidnap him and killed Cedric to not have unwanted witnesses. It was basically what had happened, just understandable for a muggle. Harry explained that he had been allowed to go to the camp without protection by his relatives not wanting to have their family put in danger, and as nobody knew where he would be, nobody would attempt a second kidnapping which he was in Sweden. Not to mention that the police was working on getting everybody involved in the kidnapping. The main culprit had been captured, which was what Harry made Barty Crouch junior's fate out to be. He had met with the man twice a week for an hour while the man was at the camp.

It had helped Harry get everything into perspective and how to deal with things that happened easier. The psychologist had suggested that Harry found a coping activity, as he called it, one that allowed him to express his feelings and let him calm down. At the camp, to Harry's surprise, it had been pottery that let him relax. He mellowed greatly when he simply shaped the wet clay into different kinds of things. From vases to plates, he had learned how to do it. The process was simple in itself, but not too simple to lose all thoughts. He had to think what he wanted to make, as the spinning disk on which his lump of clay sat needed to be powered by him tipping the pedal under it and his hands needed to be careful to not mess up the form.

But otherwise, he didn't need to think about complicated things. He could clear his mind properly. And, he had to say, his creations had been quite good already. While they only had one oven to fire the clay, the group could live with that easily. And most only wanted to have one or two things fired, as they had limited space to take them back home with them, not to mention that not everything was suited to be shown off to family. Harry had solved the problem with a hidden compartment of his trunk. It was magical after all and the space on the inside was larger than on the outside. Not that any of his fellow campers ever noticed. They knew that he had problems with his family and got psychological help for that and that pottery made him more mellow, thus he did more things than they did.

They suspected he threw the pieces he didn't want away. Perhaps as stress relief. As he did throw some horrible pieces, made like that intentionally, as they represented people or places he hated, it was quite therapeutic.

Harry walked towards the nearest underground station and bought himself a ticket to Charing Cross Road, from where he could enter the Leaky Cauldron and get into Diagon Alley. He knew he had grown, finally that growth spurt he had been waiting for had started, and he needed new robes, shoes and boots. And this time, as nobody was there to stop him, he would go for robes with climate control charms on them. Cost a galleon more for three uniforms, but it was so worth it. Especially in Potions classes in winter.

He also knew that there was a muggle shop close to the Leaky Cauldron, where he could buy some normal envelopes, paper for letters and stamps. He would need those things to keep in contact with his new friends after all.

* * *

A lynx patronus arrived at Grimmauld Place and started speaking with the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Harry Potter is in Diagon Alley. Send somebody he knows to retrieve him."

"Finally; seems he's back," Remus stated, "I will go over there immediately. Too bad that we don't have more people that could help out right now."

"I would go, but that would cause mass panic," Sirius sighed.

"Once we get the rat, that issue will be corrected," Remus assured him.

"Your word in Merlin's ear," Sirius replied, "You better get going to collect Harry. I'm going to ready the room I prepared for him."

"I thought Molly had planned to have him room with Ron?" Remus asked.

"This is my house, no matter what she might think, and Harry is my godson. Of course, he will be getting his own room. And honestly, I don't see the need to put all the kids together. In the beginning, when we had limited safe space, okay, but now? We are done with the bedrooms and over half of the other rooms. And the only ones that live here currently are me, the Weasleys and Hermione," Sirius pointed out.

"Point taken. Well, I'm off. Don't want to miss him in the end," Remus stated, and Sirius nodded.

* * *

Remus quickly left the house and then apparated to Diagon Alley's apparition point. He turned his steps towards Gringotts. On his way, he was intercepted by Kingsley.

"He left the bank about five minutes ago, Remus. I didn't approach him, as he doesn't know me. He went to Madam Malkin's. Probably it will work out best if you wait outside to talk to him and then take him back to headquarters. I also think he was smarter than we thought. He came out of Gringotts with a trunk he didn't have on his person while going inside. I think he stored his trunk with all his things inside his vault while he was away," Kingsley told Remus.

"Would explain why we didn't find much when we looked at Privet Drive. Only seven of the Lockhart books and I guess he didn't consider them a big loss, should his relatives do something," Remus nodded, "Okay, I'll go and meet Harry. Anything else you noticed, Kingsley?"

"He looks healthy and tanned. Probably because he spent much time outside during the past weeks," Kingsley shrugged.

Remus took that information and walked over to the robes shop. He only had to wait for ten minutes until Harry came back outside.

"Oh, hi, Professor Lupin," Harry greeted him cheerily.

"Hello, Harry. Good to see you safe," Remus decided to stay polite, as they really didn't have any leg to stand on in reprimanding him, "And please call me Remus or Moony, I'm not your teacher any longer after all."

"Thank you. I just came back from my vacation. It was great. And that stupid growth spurt I was waiting for has finally started. I actually grew seven centimetres while I was away. I guess the exercise I got helped along, next to good food," Harry told him grinning, "How is the dog?"

"Getting cabin fever, but otherwise okay," Remus replied, knowing that Harry meant Sirius.

"He would have liked it where I went. Lots of forest and a cool lake to swim and canoe. I learned lots of things. I can fish now and orientate in the wild with just a compass and a map," Harry stated proudly.

"Oh, where did you go?" Remus asked, wanting to know where Harry had vanished to, as any search attempts had been given up as useless once it was known that the pathfinder camp was outside of Great Britain.

"Sweden. The one thing I needed to make sure was that the insect repellent was put on regularly, but otherwise I didn't have any trouble. Thankfully the tents had nets to keep midges out. Those Swedish ones were large and plentiful. Probably no wonder with the lake around," Harry explained.

Sweden, well, they wouldn't have been able to search that country, even if they had tried. And Harry seemed happier than ever before, thus it was a good result and giving him an earful wouldn't help at all.

"Sounds great. Listen, I'm here to bring you to the place where you will stay for the rest of the summer break until you go back to Hogwarts, Harry. The dog will certainly be happy to see you again and your friends are there as well," Remus explained, "With the current situation it's dangerous to be out here on your own."

"As if they would dare doing anything in plain sight when their boss is still consolidating his power. After all, Fudge wouldn't be able to deny things anymore, should they do that. I still need a few things, but I don't have a problem with you coming with me, if you are that concerned. And your friend that called you can also come," Harry grinned.

"How did you notice?" Remus asked and signalled Kingsley to come over.

"How else would you have been able to come here this quickly? I didn't spend more than half an hour inside Gringotts, as I had to arrange one thing with the goblins before I went shopping. There had to be somebody that spotted me. I was actually somewhat counting on that, as I would have otherwise needed to find an out of the way spot to send Padfoot a patronus to fetch me," Harry commented.

"I would suggest you refrain from any underage magic, Mr Potter," Kingsley stated, having reached the two, "I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt, an auror. And Minister Fudge is out to get any dirt on you that he can. Best not to give him something to work with."

"Noted, but the large concentration of magic in Diagon Alley makes it impossible for the trace to work. It's the same effect as at Hogwarts," Harry told the two.

"How do you know that?" Remus frowned.

"Do you know how many students that go shopping for school use spells around here? Hermione used a repairing charm on my glasses once, after my ill-working first attempt to use the floo that ended at Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley. Really, they should teach how to floo at Hogwarts for those coming in from the muggle world," Harry grumbled.

"Can't argue with that logic," Remus grinned, not thinking it wrong, as long as it was harmless use of magic that Harry had in mind. And he was glad that Harry wanted to contact Sirius to come and spend the rest of the summer break with him.

"So, what do you need to buy?" Kingsley asked, wanting to get on with things and not have Harry in plain sight for too long.

"Well, some books, potion ingredients for my kit that need to be replenished, some owl treats, notebooks for classes, ink and some parchment as well," Harry listed.

"Notebooks?" Remus asked confused.

"There is this cool shop in Espen Alley that sells all kinds of stationary that is created similarly to how muggle things look, but they have many magical features. The notebooks for example allow you to sort the pages by writing numbers into the corner on the bottom of the page and you will then have them in the order you decided on. They also have fields in which you can write a title and the book will create an index at the front, which makes revision much easier, as you don't have to search as long as normally to find the right notes. Tapping the page number on the index will even open the notebook at the right page. And just putting a piece of parchment over a page, for example for an essay, and stating 'copy', makes a perfect copy of what you wrote on the parchment. You can also delete something that you wrote, but don't like how it sounded after you were done. I love them," Harry explained, "Not to mention that they appear to have one hundred pages, but in reality, there are one thousand. I already won Neville over for them, as he is desperate for any way to keep order over his notes, simply because he's a bit forgetful."

Remus smiled, remembering that well from the year he had taught at Hogwarts.

"How did you find them?" Kingsley asked curiously.

"I had three weeks of free time in Diagon Alley before my third year. I explored the area a lot and found Espen Alley. Most shops there are run by muggleborns that didn't get permission to run a shop in Diagon Alley. Bigotry at work," Harry commented.

"Quite right. Well, shall we go then?" Remus asked.

Harry nodded and soon they walked into the alley that went off from Diagon to the left of Gringotts. They needed to walk for ten minutes, while Kingsley and Remus were on guard for any surprise attacks. But nothing happened. Harry was clearly familiar with Espen Alley, which was actually more of a marketplace than a whole alley. He went through the shops and bought several things, including a large number of clothes, all with added charms to make them more comfortable, no matter which weather conditions. Remus was honestly surprised how low the prices in the shops were compared to the ones in Diagon Alley and made a note to come and shop for some things he needed later on. He never had much money, but the prices that the shops here asked for were much more along his budget than the ones he was used to.

What neither of the two men noticed was that Harry bought four new sets of language courses. He had discovered the possibility before his third year, when he had finally been free to actually explore the magical shopping district, and had started adding language studies to his schedule during his third year. While the Room of Requirement had given him the information that it was possible to do so, without the actual materials he wouldn't get far and in this, the room couldn't help out beyond normal books about the subject. The development was a more recent one. There were spells to allow learning a language faster than normal, but they required that one heard the language being spoken for at least three weeks on end to build up a decent vocabulary.

And even then, it didn't include having the rules for grammar and the like down. It was a way to work around having to communicate in a foreign country and understand the locals, but nothing more. The language courses implanted the full knowledge of a language into the person's brain magically over the course of a year, if one invested at least one hour a week into these studies that was, and then it would show the results by always being able to recall it perfectly. Two galleons per language that was won that way was truly acceptable. He already planned to give Hermione the French course for her birthday. He didn't want her to direct too much attention his way and learning something this useful in a magical way would totally keep her occupied. Ron was much easier to distract.

* * *

 **That's it for today, until next week.**


	3. At Headquarters

**Wow, the response to this story was bigger than I expected. 169 reviews until now. Thank you all for leaving them. Also thanks to those that favoured this story.**

 **Now on to the next chapter. Happy reading.**

* * *

 **At Headquarters**

At Grimmauld Place, Harry was greeted by Sirius, who had to keep a portrait silenced, as the portrait shrieked like a banshee whenever the curtains before it were opened, which always happened whenever somebody was too loud in the vicinity.

"Good to see you, Harry, come on, let's get away from here, otherwise my mother's portrait will never shut up," Sirius told Harry.

Harry nodded, being surprised that the harridan in the portrait was Sirius' mother. Sirius showed him to a room upstairs that was on the third floor.

"So, this is your house?" Harry asked once they were far enough away from the portrait.

"Yeah. I hated growing up here, but it is perfect as headquarters for the Order," Sirius nodded.

"Family protections?" Harry guessed.

"Yes. My father was a paranoid bastard and had any kind of ward there was on this house. I would rather not be here, too many bad memories, but with the current situation, I can't really go out," Sirius sighed, "But let's not talk about that. How was your vacation and where did you go?"

"It was great. I definitely enjoyed being away from Privet Drive for those six weeks. And the camp was in Sweden," Harry answered with a smile.

"Sweden? Wow, didn't expect that. What kind of things did you do and see?" Sirius asked and once they had set Harry's trunk down in the room he had decided to give Harry, they took seats in the small sitting corner, where Sirius had made sure Harry had some nice armchairs and a coffee table.

Harry launched into the story of the activities that had been offered at camp, which things he had newly learned, among them sailboarding and canoeing, then trips the group had gone onto, both into cities and into nature, he had seen elks and beavers on a canoe trip and then of course the orientation exercises. Harry also told Sirius that once he had got the film in his camera developed, which he would need to get done at a muggle photo shop, as he didn't know how to do it with magical means, he would show him all the pictures he had taken. Harry also told him about the psychological help he got from the psychologist that had coincidentally been at the camp, which relieved Sirius a lot.

Sirius was happy that Harry had had a good vacation for once.

"I'm glad you had a great time there and got the help you needed. Even if you had the order panicking in the beginning when we didn't know where you were. Hedwig took her time delivering the letter," Sirius commented.

"I told her to wait until I was already in Sweden. I didn't want anybody to interfere. After all, as my relatives signed the permission form, they were very eager to get rid of me early on, everything was okay. And I don't get why I should tell Dumbledore of all people what I do during summer break, when he decided without my input to place an information embargo on me," Harry stated, "Not to mention that it's ridiculous to tell my school's headmaster where I spend my time outside of school. Just because he is Dumbledore doesn't change that the fact that he doesn't have anything to do with me beyond school."

Sirius could hear the slight anger about that in Harry's voice. Well, he had told the Order that doing that wouldn't be smart.

"True and I don't blame you. You deserved to get away. Just for the future, if you want to go on such a trip again, please inform me where you go and take a two-way mirror with you, so that you can call for help in case of an emergency, or if you simply want to talk. I dug out the mirrors your Dad and I used at school, mainly when we were in separate detentions, after one long rant of Molly Weasley about nobody being able to find you if you were attacked. I know she means well, but she got on my nerves with her complaints about you being irresponsible," Sirius told Harry.

"She had no reason to act like that. I'm not her son after all and she has no authority whatsoever over my actions. She's just the mother of one of my friends," Harry commented, "But I like the idea with the mirrors."

"Good, I'll give you your mirror after dinner then. I'm with you in the matter of the behaviour of Molly. I also need to tell you some less pleasant news. It concerns your relatives," Sirius began.

"Nothing you can tell me will truly bother me. I have long since stopped caring about their actions," Harry declared.

And it was true. He couldn't care less about the Dursleys. He just tried to not set them off while he had to stay there. And once he had gone through with his plans to sit the NEWTs early, he was shot of them.

"I think this will bother you a little at least. Your cousin Dudley and three of his friends were kissed by a dementor," Sirius decided to bluntly say.

"Huh? How would a dementor get to Little Whinging of all places? Did they already desert to Voldemort?" Harry asked, "Were they after me?"

"We aren't sure, but it is truly worrisome. It also ignited the opinion that you needed to be protected all around the clock and that you couldn't be allowed to leave when you wanted to. I didn't think that anybody had the right to decide that, but you need to be aware of that opinion to deal with it being brought up," Sirius informed Harry.

"Well, they can stuff that opinion. How did the Dursleys react to this freakishness that had befallen their son?" Harry asked, "Have they already thrown me out? Thank goodness that I secured my things at Gringotts before I went to the camp."

"No, they don't know about any magical involvement. As far as Kingsley, who is simply the best among the Order members to investigate in the muggle world, found out, the muggle healers found things they call drugs in the blood of the four boys that were kissed. They have deducted from that that the group got some bad kind of drug that damaged their brains. We simply didn't correct the assumption. But the Ministry hasn't reacted in any way to Kingsley's report, Fudge actually ordered everything hushed up, which has Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement up in arms. After all, it's a huge scandal and it makes your claims of Voldemort being back more believable," Sirius explained.

"I'm not going to try and convince people. I learned during my time at Hogwarts that they will believe what they want to believe and nothing I say can change that. It didn't work when they thought me to be the heir of Slytherin and neither did it over the Triwizard mess. I did what needed to be done in warning Dumbledore and Fudge. If Fudge wants to be stupid and ignore the threat, I can't change that. The Order should prepare emergency transport ways for those that want to flee the country once Voldemort comes out in the open though. Can't count on the Ministry to do something logical after all," Harry pointed out.

"You take this strangely well, Harry," Sirius noticed.

"What should I do, Sirius? Rage and complain? Won't help at all. And Kingsley told me that Fudge was out to get something he could use against me, like underage magic. Why should I risk my neck again, when there's nothing I gain by doing that? The only thing I get are scorn and pain. I will concentrate on doing well in my OWLs this year and stick to those worth sticking to. Those believing the Ministry propaganda can hang themselves," Harry declared, "And concerning the Dursleys, there is no love lost between us. They abused me ever since I arrived at their home after my parents died. They have made it more than clear that they couldn't care less if I died. They would probably throw a party. And Dudley was the one that bullied me all the time and made my time at school horrible. I didn't have any friends, because he would beat up anybody that was nice to me."

Sirius knew that Harry wasn't the little hero Dumbledore wanted. He was a Black after all and they were all good at reading people. It was a talent that ran in the family. Harry also had some Black blood in him on his father's side. His great-grandmother had been Dorea Black after all. Therefore, if driven too far, he would look out for himself first and foremost. Especially if he had been burnt by trying to do the right thing before. And Sirius couldn't blame him at all. He wouldn't have grieved for one of his tormentor's bad luck either. While he wouldn't have wished for the boy to suffer the dementor's kiss, there was nothing that could be done anymore.

"Another thing, what can you tell me about the Order and what should I look out for when I go back to Hogwarts? I think you would be my best chance to actually get some information," Harry changed topics.

"Well, the Order is a secret organisation that Dumbledore founded back when Voldemort turned up the first time to attack the British wizarding world. The members are kept secret, but often the Death Eaters know. Be it by deduction or interrogation of those they caught. Back during the first war, your parents, Remus and I were also members, next to the rat," He spat out, "We work on collecting information about the enemy and countering their plans where we can, the latter of which we currently can't really do, as Fudge is in Malfoy's pocket. Having the Ministry against us, makes the job much harder.

"We have our own spies inside the Ministry, like Kingsley and Arthur Weasley for example. But they can't go around spreading the word, simply because Fudge would see them fired for it. He's paranoid, as he knows that he would never manage leading the Ministry through a war against Voldemort, as he remembers too well how bad things were back in the seventies and early eighties. People vanished without a trace, whole families were killed in their homes and you couldn't trust many people. Everybody could be under the imperius curse," Sirius described the actions of the Order.

"I see, so open action is out. How are people warned then?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore told anybody he could, but Fudge had him voted out of his positions of power at the Wizengamot and the ICW by his flunkies. He argued that Dumbledore was going senile and that you were a chronical liar. He based that on the idiot articles of Skeeter last year. Their tone will change once Voldemort comes out of hiding, but by then it will probably be too late. The current behaviour of the Minister, who is convinced by Malfoy that Dumbledore is after his job, only plays into Voldemort's hands. He can reconnect with his old allies, like the werewolves and the giants without anybody running interference. Moony doesn't really have much success in getting the werewolves to at least stay neutral. They consider him an outsider, as he was allowed a wizard's education, contrary to most of them."

"Figures that Fudge wants to play ostrich, nothing new there. Okay, what about preparations for the probably coming all-out war? Like safe houses and the like?" Harry wanted to know.

Just because he wouldn't be here, he didn't want innocents to die because they didn't have anywhere to go.

"We are looking for some, but it's not as if we had lots of money lying around," Sirius said, "I allow the Order to use this house for free, even if that is the only thing I could do. Which Snape always reminds me of. Saying that I was basically useless for the Order," Sirius grumbled, "After all, thanks to Pettigrew, my animagus form is compromised and Malfoy, should he see me, would inform Fudge."

"Well, you can apparate around the country I think," Harry started, wanting to give Sirius something to do.

"Yeah, what idea did you have?" Sirius knew Harry had lots of good ideas.

"The problem of safe houses can easily be solved with magic and ingenuity. After all, you can use your magic to build houses easily and getting the raw materials is much cheaper than buying a house. Often you can get them for free in the wild. Like trees and stones. The Burrow wouldn't be like it is, if you couldn't use magic to hold houses together after all. You could go into places like the mountains and look for caves that you could set up as hideouts, build wooden huts in the forests, far away from the muggles, and stock all of them up with emergency supplies like food, clean water, potions and clothes. This would be far away from any place that you could be spotted at, meaning you would have something to do with your time and get out of this house," Harry explained his idea.

"That's genius. I will definitely suggest it at the next Order meeting," Sirius happily agreed, "I know that there are spells to build houses in the Black library as well. My family wouldn't trust anybody from the outside with something as important as the buildings that family members lived in. I can look them up and then set to work. And perhaps some fidelius charms on them once they are ready. It will definitely keep me busy and Snape won't be able to make snide comments anymore."

"What exactly does the jerk do for the Order?" Harry asked.

"Spying in the enemy camp. A dangerous job, no question, but I don't know how reliable the information actually is. Dumbledore says he has definite proof that Snape changed sides, but he hasn't shared it with any others," Sirius answered.

"Well, knowing what the enemy is up to will be valuable, if the information comes in time. Can you tell me what Voldemort is doing besides trying to increase his numbers?" Harry wanted to know.

"We have guards posted at the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. I don't know what is in there that he wants, but Dumbledore is sure that he will try to break in there. So far, the Order wasn't informed about the nature of the item or information yet. Otherwise, well, he wants to win without failure this time around, meaning something like your survival when he tried to use the killing curse on you, is to be avoided at all cost. He wants to wipe his record clean, meaning you are his primary target. You should see if you can look into warding and advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts next school year. Though it is truly difficult for Dumbledore to find a new teacher for DADA," Sirius told Harry.

"Understandable with the record of the position. I mean, Quirrell killed by being burned to ash from touching my bare skin, Lockhart a vegetable at St. Mungo's for a backfiring obliviate charm, totally his own fault though, I would call it poetic justice, then Remus outed as a werewolf and Moody captured inside his trunk for a year and the imposter Barty Crouch made a vegetable by a dementor. So, yes, not a job anybody would readily take up. Remus actually got away the least damaged," Harry listed.

"Physically that might be, but his being found out as a werewolf made his life much harder," Sirius sighed, "Especially with the new anti-werewolf laws that Fudge's senior undersecretary, a really nasty woman called Dolores Umbridge, got passed at the Wizengamot after Dumbledore was voted out. Werewolves are basically banned from any kind of proper job that would allow them to earn their living lawfully. It only makes it easier for Voldemort to recruit them. What would they win by supporting the current leadership, when it makes their lives horrible?"

"Ouch. What is Remus doing then?" Harry asked, honestly concerned about his father's old friend.

"He mostly works in the muggle world, but that comes with its own problems. Few employers would keep him if he regularly misses days for being sick around the full moon," Sirius answered.

"Has he ever considered founding his own business? I mean, he was a great teacher and muggles pay top money for proper tutors for their children. If he works in the muggle world, I guess he would have the qualifications for certain subjects. In doubt, he could get himself some language courses in Espen Alley and teach muggle children foreign languages. And if he was his own boss, he could set his schedule to accommodate the full moon," Harry suggested, "Nobody would need to know after all that he doesn't take on students during the days after the full moon."

"You know, that isn't a bad idea at all. What kind of language courses are you talking about? And what's Espen Alley?" Sirius asked.

Harry gave the explanation, not mentioning that the Room of Requirement had given him the knowledge that it was possible to fast-track language learning, instead claiming he had discovered the possibility when he was staying at the Leaky Cauldron before his third year at school, and how it worked.

"That sounds incredible. Normally only families with a special talent for languages can manage to learn more than a handful. The Crouchs were one of them. Otherwise the older Barty couldn't have managed to learn over forty languages fluently," Sirius stated.

"True. It would take several years to learn the number of languages, even with the support of the courses. The limit per year depends on the age, for me it's currently four languages according to the shop owner, as I just had my fifteenth birthday this summer," Harry pondered.

"Still impressive. How come that Hermione doesn't know about it yet?" Sirius was curious.

"Because, when I found out about it, I first wanted to know if it really worked like it should. Then she was all stressed out from taking all electives offered in our third year and I decided that I wouldn't mention it. While she dropped two subjects by the end of that year, she still had ten subjects and you know that she is a perfectionist in regards of anything concerning education. You can manage to study all twelve subjects, if you limit yourself to doing just the amount of work that is asked of you both in class and for homework. But Hermione can never do that. She needs to know every little detail perfectly. Therefore, it was better that she didn't know that there was a way to learn languages perfectly within a year. She would have insisted on adding them as well, the maximum number possible for a year of study at that, and would have burned out," Harry explained.

"I can see that happening," Sirius admitted, "Though she will be cross when she finds out about it."

"Tough. If she can't look out for her health, others need to do it. I plan to give her the French course for her birthday, but I won't tell her that she theoretically could add three more languages to use the full capacity of the courses for the year. She will already do more than anybody else for her OWLs," Harry stated, not mentioning that the course was mainly meant to keep Hermione from digging too much into what he was doing.

If he wanted everything to go perfectly, he would need to prepare and that would only work if Hermione didn't have the time to keep too close an eye onto him. He needed to get away from time to time during the day and she would interrogate him where he went, which he didn't plan to allow. He was too close to his goal now to fail in finally being free.

* * *

Hermione tried to reprimand Harry for leaving the Dursleys without telling anybody, but Harry rebuffed her rant.

"Hermione, I was perfectly within my rights to leave for a pathfinder camp, as my relatives couldn't get rid of me fast enough. They signed the forms, I used my own money to pay for the trip and that is all there is to it," Harry told her.

"But Professor Dumbledore said you needed to stay with them. That it was the best place for you," Hermione insisted.

"And he had no right to dictate anything about my life and my summer break. He is my headmaster, Hermione, not my guardian. No matter what other positions he has, in the magical world, I don't have a proper guardian, as Sirius is falsely considered a criminal. He would be the only one that could have said anything against it, if he could exercise his rights as my godfather properly," Harry pointed out.

"But he's Professor Dumbledore!"

"Still not in any way in a position to have power to decide what I do during times outside of school," Harry repeated, "I know you have a problem to not obey authority figures, but if I take your argument, Fudge would have a right to tell me what to do. Or you, or Ron. And he also doesn't have that. People are free to choose what they do, as long as they don't commit crimes by doing so or harm others. And I can certainly tell you that going to a pathfinder camp didn't harm anybody. Well, except for the fishes I caught there, but that doesn't count. This is the same as you deciding to go on vacation with your parents, or other teenagers being allowed to join youth travel groups, like I did, with permission of their parents or guardians. Nothing else. It's perfectly normal. And no teacher would even think of doing this in concerns to their students."

"Professor Dumbledore just has your best interest at heart," Hermione insisted.

"That doesn't change facts, Hermione. You are always going on about rules, but you need to open your eyes and accept that not all rules are valid. And that those rules that are valid need to be interpreted and used at the right time. Not to mention that not everything you believe is a rule is actually one. Like this thing on insisting to tell Dumbledore everything that goes on in my life. It was never made an actual rule. School rules have no bearing outside of school. That's why they are called SCHOOL rules.

"There the laws count. And if you have a corrupt government, those laws can be fatally flawed. You have had history classes in primary school. Think of Nazi Germany in the thirties and forties. Their laws were made by a rightful government, one that was elected by the people, but they were criminals that deceived the people and brainwashed a whole generation into their beliefs of total superiority of a certain idea of humans. They murdered millions of people, all in the name of purity of race. Sounds familiar? It's the same Voldemort does now. You have to critically question what authority persons tell you before you accept it as right or wrong."

"Professor Dumbledore wouldn't do that," Hermione tried again, "And you were in danger."

"Blind trust leads into doom, Hermione. And I wasn't in any danger in Sweden, as nobody knew where I was. If nobody knows, nobody can betray it to the enemy. There were no wizards around, it was a muggle camp."

Hermione didn't like that Harry didn't simply follow her arguments, he had never argued like this with her before, but the problem was, he had some really good points. But she didn't want to admit that she could be wrong. That Professor Dumbledore could be wrong.

"You will have to live with not always being right," Harry then said, as if he could read her mind, "Otherwise, you will suffer once you get out of school. No employer will allow you to stick to a wrong opinion. If you overdo it, you will be fired, plain and simple. If you don't believe me, ask any of the adults around here. Question the ones that work at the Ministry about how corrupt a place it is and then think why you should always make up your own opinion about things.

"To come back to my example. People that had been good, before Hitler took over ruling Germany in the thirties, allowed themselves to be made believe that Jews were lesser people. They had been their neighbours for years, never giving them any reason to hate them, and just because their maniac leader told them they were the spawn of Satan, they didn't rebel when they were carted off into ghettos.

"They never questioned it, as long as they weren't the ones being taken. They blindly followed one that promised them ridiculous things and seemingly brought their country from the depression it had fallen into over the world economy crisis. And we both know how that blind trust ended. I don't say that Dumbledore is a bad person, I say that you generally need to stop just doing everything a person in a position of authority tells you, without questioning it even once. Otherwise, you will get a nasty wake-up, like those Germans when they found out that the 'final solution' to the Jews was genocide via concentration camps."

Hermione swallowed. She knew of course about the darkest chapter of German history. The mass murder of millions of people, just for their religion, which was called a race by the Nazis. How the world was thrown into a horrible war, because the good people didn't act against the Nazis when they still could.

Harry left her standing in the room, not wanting to continue arguing. He had made his point and now she needed to do her homework and see what kind of bastards ran the country, with Dumbledore being one of the worst ones, as Harry considered sacrificing your own people for the goal to redeem the ones that didn't deserve it betrayal against them. If Harry had to decide how to lead the war, and it was war, no mistaking it, he would order the enemy to be taken out for good in battle. If possible, capture, after all, you could gain valuable information by interrogating them under veritaserum, and if it was too dangerous, aim to kill. In war people died and it was much better if it were the ones that wanted this war than the ones that only fought to be able to go back to living peacefully. People like the Lestranges should have been shot by snipers when they appeared in battle. Bellatrix Lestrange never even concealed her identity when she battled, except she got specific orders. Getting her in an ambush would have been simple.

But no, they didn't have the guts to get things done. Well, not his problem for much longer. One year at that backwards school left and then he would be free to leave to better places. And by giving Hermione this type of thing to investigate, she couldn't keep too close an eye on him to report important things to Dumbledore.

* * *

When the prefect badges were delivered with the school letters just before the school year was about to start, Harry wasn't surprised in the least that he didn't get the badge. He knew that Dumbledore was playing his games again, but honestly, Ron as a prefect? That was ridiculous. Any of the other Gryffindor boys in his year would do a better job. Hermione was easily justified with her grades and stickling for the rules. But Ron was average at best in his classes and couldn't control his temper when he was needled. Well, he didn't really feel like celebrating a party to honour the new Gryffindor prefects, which Molly Weasley had arranged, but the food was good. And with these many guests, he didn't have to fear manipulation of the food he ate.

Especially as there were aurors in the group. He knew that the Weasleys and Dumbledore had tried to put him under control potions for ages, but he always knew, as he had been smart enough to get himself a detection crystal for any kind of potions and poisons in his food shortly after he had returned to Privet Drive from his first year. When the Dursleys hadn't known yet that he wasn't allowed to use magic outside of school. They had been happy when he wasn't around and hadn't asked what he was doing. And there was a regular train to London from Little Whinging.

He had gone shopping for all kinds of things he wanted to have, things he had smuggled into Privet Drive and his room while Aunt Petunia had been out for her bridge club. She thought she had locked him out of the house, but he had long since made a spare key for himself, simply to get more food when she locked him out of the house while going grocery shopping and the like, as those times were the only opportunities he had, next to the overgrown garden of a house in Violet Drive, which hadn't been taken care of more than twice during the year, as the previous owner had died without heirs and the sale of the house hadn't worked out like the bank would have liked it.

Thus, they didn't really see any reason to invest too much money into the house, just enough to keep it in good enough repair to have any interests for it. But the house was old and needed major repairs before it was liveable again. It had taken until Harry's second year at Hogwarts to find a buyer. The property, which was surrounded by a large hedge, probably one reason why the people in the neighbourhood didn't complain more about the looks of the house and garden, and the neighbour next door always cut the outside of the hedge when he did his own one, simply to not have people talk badly about their street, was one of Harry's sanctuaries as a child. Dudley didn't know about the hole in the hedge at one place, where a lean child could slip through.

There was an apple tree and several berry bushes in the garden, which supplied Harry with much needed food to get by. After all, his aunt had very strange ideas of how much food sufficed for him. While she didn't directly starve him, except during times he had done something freakish, meaning accidental magic, she would only let him eat one small portion of anything she cooked. And normally, during summer break, Harry had to get by with two meals, breakfast and dinner, as his aunt wouldn't allow him anything for lunch, telling him he burdened them enough already.

Well, the spare key was still in Harry's possession. He had thought about some petty revenge but considering that Dudley had been kissed by a dementor, he wouldn't do it. While he hated them, he would never have gone that far in his retaliation. Dudley was beyond any help and killing was something Harry would only do to the worst criminals or in battle for his life. Not because somebody had bullied him. Any kind of suffering he could have come up with, would pale compared to what the Dursleys went through right now.

He used the time to talk to Mad-Eye, milking his brain for ways to safely get out of the country, of course saying that it was in case Voldemort took over the Ministry before he could be stopped, and Harry still needed to train to not be killed on the spot when facing him. Mad-Eye, ever the pragmatic and vigilant guy, fully approved that Harry wanted to be ready in case shit hit the fan. He told him about smuggler routes to get over to France, outside the main traffic routes of both wizards and muggles. After all, should the Ministry fall, which he considered very much possible with it being as infested with Malfoy's supporters as it was, the observation wards like caterwauling charms after curfew would be used by the enemy to control the magical population.

And the Ministry had wards that could be activated to detect any magical crossing the border at the known points. Smaller harbours to rent small ships would be the best bet. Places like Falmouth had a history of smuggling contraband into England in the eighteenth century, but they were also good to cross borders unnoticed. It wasn't far to France after all. Thanks to Harry's passport, he wouldn't have any trouble doing just that, even if he planned to use his broom during the night to get away. And he doubted that even Fudge could run down the Ministry enough that Voldemort could fully take over within the year Harry would need to finish his schooling officially. Not when Voldemort still had to rebuild his side of the war after thirteen years as a wraith.

* * *

 **Until next week.**


	4. When Harry tries to stay out of Trouble

**Hi, everybody. Here is the fourth chapter of this story. Thank you for the reviews and putting the story on your favourites list. Now on with the story. Happy reading.**

* * *

 **When Harry tries to stay out of trouble**

The first day of school had a timetable that Harry would have preferred not to endure. History of Magic, then Potions, Divination, which Dumbledore had insisted he took, even if he had asked if a switch was possible after the first death prediction, and finally DADA with the Ministry toad. Well, he had long practice in ignoring nuisances and people out to get a rise out of him. Ron was already groaning about the subjects on his timetable today. And Hermione couldn't help herself pouring oil into the fire by mentioning that Ron should have taken a better class once it became clear that Trelawney was a fraud in their third year.

Well, he had already taken care of switching out his DADA book for a proper one, while the teacher wouldn't be able to notice anything. Here at Hogwarts, it was simple to get this done unnoticed. History he would use to do self-study, using invisible ear plugs, simply because Hermione would complain too much about visible ones, even if his silent reading of a proper history book was much better than what the rest of the class was doing. Honestly, why couldn't the supposed best school for magic in the country hire a proper history teacher? Did Binns still get a salary?

And he knew who Umbridge was. Sirius had told him after all who had written up all those horrible laws that made life for werewolves in wizarding Britain nearly unbearable. Congratulations to a bureaucrat driving dangerous and cornered people into the waiting hands of extremists. Ironically, these same people looked down on werewolves worse than the people they would be attacking. But nobody in the government could see this. One more reason to leave the country as soon as possible. He observed how Hermione got up to head to class. Well, time to get his last year at Hogwarts started.

* * *

History, Harry had to say, had been the best class of the day. He had been left alone, could just read his book, which was a hundred times more interesting than anything Binns could ever say, and Hermione had already worked herself into an OWL frenzy by the time Potions had ended. Snape had been in great, nasty form and had driven home how unpleasant this coming year would be. Well, if he would be displeased, as he called it, with those not managing to get an A in their OWLs, then he should have taught properly. Even Harry, with his, admittedly limited, experience in what proper teachers were like, could have managed to teach up to third year by now and ensure that his students could pass their class.

Not get top grades, he wasn't an expert in Potions, but the equivalent of an E he was sure he could manage. And that sufficed for brewing common potions at home without having to buy them at an apothecary. Hermione was delusional to think that Snape would ever change, especially not over something insignificant like being and Order member. Harry knew that the subject was dangerous, had realised it in his very first Potions class when Neville got burned by the potion he managed to mess up, thanks to adding porcupine quills without taking the cauldron from the fire, but it would have been dead easy to drive that point home otherwise, like a staged accident to demonstrate what could go wrong if you messed up. No need to get a student injured for it.

The draught of peace, the potion they had to work on for this class, was tricky, but the one thing you needed to do was being precise. And that, well, Snape had never taught them how to manage that. If not for some books from Espen Alley, which Harry had bought before his third year, he would never have managed. This book series _'Guide to Potions Brewing – From Beginner to Master'_ was invaluable to him. The Room of Requirement had given him a different series of books, which had already been helpful, called _'Brewing 102'_ and contained the basics every student should know before even starting his first potion. The _'Guide'_ series was more detailed though and went deeper into the hows and whys of the subject. The room's books, which Harry learned, had been part of the students' book lists for ages until it was taken off it over arguments that the basic equipment of students cost too much.

It was in a history book of the development of Hogwarts where Harry learned it. About two hundred years back, first complaints about the costs of Hogwarts were voiced. While he was aware that the school wasn't cheap to attend, he hadn't had any idea of the actual numbers before he read the book. Hogwarts cost the equivalent of a highly-rated muggle secondary school. The fact that it was a boarding school played into it of course, but also the number of magical subjects offered. Before the Statute of Secrecy was enacted in 1692, mainly the wealthy families could afford sending all of their children to Hogwarts.

The less wealthy ones mainly sent their heir, and if they could manage, their spare heir to study at this highly respected school. The other children were either taught at home by their parents, or they were sent to trade schools to learn a magical profession, which included the basics of how to run a home for the witches. Actually, only the daughters of very influential and wealthy families went to Hogwarts at all for a higher education, and also to find a good match among the other students as a husband.

It also was a sign that a family had a lot of money, if they could afford sending a daughter there. Witches that graduated from Hogwarts were sought after as brides for the sons of other influential families, as they could be sure that the witch in question would be given a large dowry. And the fathers of said witches could gain a lot of power by accepting the offers of a family that stood to give them the highest benefits, be it in concerns of political alliances, business contacts or simply social standing.

The students only went to trade school until they were fifteen, ending with a watered-down version of the OWLs in selected subjects, next to the different subjects that were more in line of preparing for a craft being taught, and after that, those chosen to learn a profession were taken on as apprentices and the others went to work in simple jobs or helped with farms at home.

It was easy to understand, as the separation between muggle and wizarding world happened before the industrialisation began. Cities hadn't been as large back then as they were today, and most people lived in rural areas, where farming was the most important profession to feed all mouths in a family.

While poor families got support in sending their children here, it was limited. If a family had just one child, they didn't have problems, except in affording all the equipment for the school at once. School tuition depended on how the child did at school in those days. First year was free of charge for those families, while all others paid half of the price of what was demanded in second year. In second year, they had to pay half of the price of others in that year and then their performance decided if they could stay or had to leave. It was done to at least teach all children the basics of control over their magic. After that, the children had to prove that they were worthy to stay at Hogwarts instead of being sent to the trade schools. For example, a student that achieved the equivalent of A's in all of his classes would be sent away after ensuring proper knowledge of how to call upon his or her magic.

It wasn't seen as good enough to stay at an elite school. E's were the minimal requirement to stay, if you couldn't pay the full price for a year, which started from third year on, when the electives were chosen. It was also then that the tuition rose again by fifty percent, simply because electives would now be added. And here only those families that saw a great benefit in having their children educated at Hogwarts chose that option, instead of sending them to a trade school. After all, those students from rich families that had trouble keeping up at Hogwarts would also drag the family name down, should the fail certain subjects.

Harry had found out that O's were given for getting ninety percent and more in a subject, E's meant seventy-five to eighty-nine percent and A's sixty to seventy-four percent. This way, the school weeded out those not willing to either invest the effort needed to excel in their classes or were too stupid to do it. And for those that came from simple families that often didn't even teach their children reading, writing and calculating, the trade schools were much better suited, as they included those subjects next to the magical curriculum.

You simply couldn't be considerate of every student if you had to get through a large number of magical topics until the OWLs, not to mention the following NEWTs. And even the children that weren't that smart and came from wealthier wizarding families were taught reading and writing at least before they were eleven.

This system held up the separation between rich and poor, but it still gave all magical children a much better base to live their lives than the muggles did at the same time. And for several years after the separation it stayed that way. Mainly in modern times things were different.

Back to the discussion about costs for Hogwarts. Due to lack of interbreeding with muggles, incest, as Harry knew it being called by muggles, became more prevalent in magical families. You could only marry wizards and witches in your own country for so long without marrying too close to your own family line. Especially if you also kept the choice of partners to a certain financially affluent group. That caused the number of squib births to rise exponentially. Not to mention the pureblood supremacists that refused to marry non-purebloods. It also lowered the level of magic that the students could use, which made keeping up the level of education at Hogwarts more difficult and subjects were taken from the curriculum, as they didn't have enough students anymore that could manage the requirements.

With less children capable of using magic being born, the trade schools shrunk as well. First their number was reduced, at the beginning there were five trade schools in all of Great Britain, until only one of them remained. Incoming muggleborns also protested the treatment they got, claiming that they were as good as the ones from the wealthier magical families. And it proved true in more cases than before, as the general education for muggle children had improved since the concept of separating by results had been established in the wizarding world. While there was no law that forced parents to send their children to school, most families still did so, simply because it was easier than educating them at home. In Harry's case, his aunt would have had to deal with visits from officials to frequently make sure that she was teaching him properly. And that she wouldn't accept in her normal life. Thus, Harry was sent to primary school like all other children in Little Whinging.

This system ensured that the muggleborns managed to remain at Hogwarts more often, but most of them still couldn't afford the full school fees. From second year on, there was a set amount of money that the school demanded to educate the children. While second year was affordable for all families, even the poor ones, from third year on it changed. The fee included full boarding, education in up to twelve subjects in the years three to five, a large part of supplies for the subjects, like ingredients for Potions or items to be transfigured in Transfiguration and health care in case you were injured or sick.

Compared to what muggle schools offered, the price was justified. And the good students could reduce their fees. In case you managed to keep all your grades to E's, you could request a reduction of your fees by twenty percent. For half of your grades O's and the rest at least E's, you got thirty-five percent reduction and if you actually managed to get straight O's, you could cut them down to fifty percent. It was a system the founders themselves had established to not turn away really talented students. And back in their time there were also programs that allowed those students to earn money at the side by working for either the school or some businesses down in Hogsmeade to afford the remaining part easier. The best students could also apply for scholarships, which were funded by a foundation paid for by money that Gryffindor and Ravenclaw invested. The interest was enough to allow two students each year to go through Hogwarts without having to pay.

Harry knew that this program was only open to those that couldn't afford tuition otherwise, next to orphans that didn't have access to their family money yet. Though the latter ones got different support that had to be paid back in the end.

Then the war against Grindelwald took place. It changed the whole political and economic situation of wizarding Europe. It also killed off many wizarding families, meaning the trade schools had even less candidates to attend them. While Great Britain had been spared for the most part, their limited gene pool did the same as the war did. The last trade school of wizarding Britain was closed in 1950, when Hogwarts got the mandate to educate all magical children up to at least their OWL year, when only the best would be accepted into their NEWT classes. It was a compromise and the Ministry channelled the funds that had previously been given to the trade school to Hogwarts to make up for the added number of students.

But it meant that the school now had to calculate carefully what to spend the money it got for. Some could be managed by changing the diet of the students. It wasn't as varied as before anymore, while still supplying them with the needed nutrients and energy for classes. Better food was limited to the feasts, special occasions. Then the classes for each student were cut down. Before, each student would have thirty-two class periods each week in their first two years here, meaning four class periods for the eight subjects taught, the same ones as these days, minus magical theory, which was integrated into the other classes. Now the first and second-years only had three class periods in the main subjects and two in Astronomy and History of Magic. Meaning, they had nineteen class periods overall.

The teachers substituted the class time with longer homework essays to still give the children to education they needed. Though, and here Harry had to shake his head, the level of education severely varied, depending on how much the students did for their essays.

From third year to fifth year, the students had three class periods in their electives added to their schedule, meaning those that added the maximum number possible, without a time-turner being employed, had twenty-eight class periods. Back when the cut was made after second year, it had normally been thirty-seven with three subjects being chosen on top of previous ones. Magical Theory, Astronomy and History of Magic had been cut back to two class periods to give the students the chance to take three additional subjects if they wanted to. Because the electives all had three class periods per week and each student had to select one foreign language per year to study, meaning an additional two class periods per week. It only stressed that Hogwarts was meant to be an elite school that demanded much from the students.

But with the trade schools being gone, this concept couldn't be kept up anymore, simply because there were too many students to teach, and the budget of parents that now had to send their children to Hogwarts if they wanted them to have a decent education, was extremely strained. Meaning, things that the parents had to buy were kept to the absolute minimum. How Lockhart had managed to be allowed putting seven expensive books onto the list was not understandable in that context. But probably because otherwise the school wouldn't have had a DADA teacher. Assistant positions were cut from the budget as well, meaning the teachers had much more work and less time for themselves.

Overall, the loss of the last trade school hadn't done wizarding Britain any favours. With the old system, people like the Weasleys would have sent their two oldest sons to Hogwarts and Percy would have managed to gain one of the coveted scholarships, as he had been an excellent student. But the twins, Ron and Ginny would have gone to the trade school. Though perhaps the twins and Ginny might have been good enough for scholarships as well or they could at least have managed to reduce their fees to sixty-five percent. Harry knew that they were smart after all. For the Weasleys' finances it would have been much better in any case.

But the cuts to the equipment meant that books like _'Brewing 102'_ were not kept on the lists and the teachers were meant to at least inform the classes about them at the beginning of a school year to give them the choice to get them to supplement their normal school books. Harry knew that Professor McGonagall had a very simple approach to that problem. The school had a list of books to supplement the studies of the children that all parents could request via owl free of charge. Then the deputy headmistress would send the current one and the families could decide which subjects would need additional books.

For muggleborns she delivered the list herself and explained the situation to the parents. Of course, not the reasons behind it, but that the Board of Governors had decided to leave the choice to the parents, as they didn't want to force them to spend large amounts of money for private books for the children, when the use of the school's library was free of charge. Problem with that was just that many books were outdated and biased. And the really useful ones, like the _'Guide to Potions Brewing'_ series, weren't there at all. At least not in the normal section. The restricted section had one copy of the first tome of the series, but it was too expensive to be allowed in the normal section, even if the contents weren't dangerous in any way. The Potions guild refused to have many copies printed and only Potions masters got their own ones. No wonder that Great Britain lacked decent potions brewers. The ' _Brewing 102'_ book was there, but only two copies, which normally were regularly borrowed by Ravenclaws. Impossible to get it.

Harry was lucky that his parents, like many others that fought in the war, had put his whole Hogwarts tuition into an education vault, one that would release the needed tuition for a year at the beginning of each year. The vault would be closed once Harry ended his education and any possible remaining money would be sent back to the Potter family vault. After all, it was possible that a student couldn't continue on NEWT level, simply because he didn't achieve the needed grades. Most subjects required an E at the least to continue. This way, as Harry also had his personal trust vault, next to his mother's vault, he didn't have to worry about not making it through Hogwarts without having to worry about money.

Not that after the basilisk sale he would ever have to, but at the time, his parents couldn't have calculated for something that earned Harry lots of money during his time at school happening. Harry had decided to send an anonymous gift of five sets of the whole series 'Guide to Potions Brewing' to Madam Pince after he was gone from Great Britain. This way, the students would at least get a better chance at passing Potions classes and it would anger Snape, who couldn't teach properly. And he would insist that the books were placed in the normal section of the library. Perhaps he could also put a spell to ensure that on the books before he sent them. Less probable that anybody interfered then.

* * *

DADA had proven to be horrible. Divination always was, but he had already written off that class after his first lesson and not being allowed to switch to Runes. Hypocritical when you considered that the school had allowed Hermione to take all classes with a time-turner and he only wanted to switch one after the first lesson at that. But no, the headmaster had to meddle. Thankfully, the Room of Requirement had given Harry all he needed to excel in both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy. It still irked him that Dumbledore had essentially attempted to sabotage Harry's education in visible ways. Ron and Hermione were the invisible ones. And according to the Hogwarts charter, any student was entitled to switching electives until the beginning of fourth year, if the student could pass the end-of-year exams in the class he wanted to take. When the first class of Runes hadn't even taken place yet at the time, it would have been simple to simply add him to Professor Babbling's class.

The new DADA teacher proved that she was as unpleasant as Sirius had told him. She was bigoted, treated the students as if they were small children that didn't understand anything and tried to pass on Ministry propaganda, mainly that Voldemort wasn't back. Harry didn't let her get a rise out of him. When asked later on, he told Ron, who was close to exploding, that he knew where Umbridge came from and that he had been warned to not play into Fudge's hands by acting out. It was much harder to call Harry a lunatic when he didn't behave like one.

And, while he didn't tell the other two, he was counting down the time he had to remain at Hogwarts. Once he had the OWLs, his full plan would unfold and then bye-bye stupid backwards magical society. He wouldn't become a martyr. Let Dumbledore clean up the mess he created on his own. After all, if Dumbledore had actually cared for his students more instead of his plans, there wouldn't have been as many that willingly followed Voldemort as there were. A good headmaster would also keep up discipline, not allow a certain group he favoured or didn't want to anger to do as they wanted. Children needed limits to grow up properly, next to support. Harry had got many books on child psychology from the room.

Perhaps he would also work around the interest of the Ministry in keeping the students stupid, with the paranoid bastard at the top believing that Dumbledore was raising his own private army at the school. It was actually the opposite. Dumbledore feared being replaced by a more competent candidate, so none of the teachers could be too knowledgeable in their subjects or in general organisation. That way he could stay in his position and influence how the country would be run once the students left school. But the other students, as idiotic most may be, needed to be able to defend themselves from normal attacks. And right now, the best they could hope for was besting common dark creatures, thanks to the one year Remus had taught.

Remus had taught that part in years three to five when he had been the DADA teacher, simply because the previous two had totally neglected it. While the fourth and fifth-years might have needed other things as well, there was a large part in the OWLs that covered dealing with dark creatures. It was something the Ministry fully acknowledged to have been known by all students. Which meant, thanks to Quirrell and Lockhart, the curriculum of the respective years had to be adjusted to give the students all they needed to know for the OWLs. Harry's year had actually profited from the fake Moody. After all, he had to play the old ex-auror properly to not tip off others to his act. Thus, he had taught them all kinds of advanced spells and how to fight against the kind of curses the Death Eaters liked to use. Ironic in the end, as he was one of the most fanatical Death Eaters himself.

Umbridge had only let them read the book and bluntly told them that they wouldn't be learning any kind of spells in class. Good thing he was far advanced in all his classes, so he didn't need her teachings to manage his important exams at the end of the year.

* * *

Dumbledore listened to the reports of his staff, the ones that weren't at the side of Fudge that meant. Meaning, basically everybody but Umbridge. The woman was a nuisance, but in case it was needed, he could easily neutralise her. She would only cause the students problems, but it helped him in keeping their general level of education low. And people that didn't have all the information didn't rebel against his ruling of the school. While he currently couldn't pull as many strings at the Ministry as before, it was only temporary. Once his warning about Voldemort was proven right, when he was ready to step into the open with his plans, people would flock to him once more. And their belief in him would be stronger than ever before. Some adversary for at most a year wouldn't harm him at all.

Losing his two positions had actually given him more free time to get some things done that he couldn't do before. And, like with everything else, he would get them back once Voldemort's return was confirmed to the public. He also knew that his way of handling politics wouldn't be gone while he was gone from his positions. He had educated nearly all the ones that directed the Wizengamot and ICW these days. They may not know it, but his idea of how things should be done, had influenced most of them, meaning drastic changes of things wouldn't happen. And those that did, well, he could change them once he was back.

Severus reported no change in the behaviour of Harry, which was good. The boy had seemingly found a book about brewing basics in the library sometime in his first year and ever since he had brewed decent but not spectacular potions. Severus didn't like it, but he could punish Gryffindor enough by riling Ron Weasley up or scaring Neville Longbottom. To keep his spy happy, he sacrificed that much. And animosity if you overcame it only made you harder. It would be good for both boys.

Minerva told him that Umbridge was trying to get students to spy for her, telling her about all kinds of illicit behaviour of other students, mainly from families that weren't on the side of the Minister. So far, this only worked with the Death Eater children, who knew that it was only a question of time until Voldemort would move openly, and they would reap the benefits of being on his side. Most students felt insulted by the way she treated them and wouldn't talk to her at all. That was good, as he knew that the Death Eater children would have helped Umbridge in any way they could, simply to disturb his grip on the castle. Umbridge was meant to distract his working against Voldemort, the idea behind it being that she would keep him too busy keeping the school under his control. If only they knew that he had too tight a net on things to be easily dispatched.

Lucius should have learned it when he had Ginny Weasley open the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore always came back to the school, where he reigned supreme. A few months of absence wouldn't do enough to turn the students that counted against him. Those that had the influence in the wizarding world, not just the Ministry.

Other teachers informed him about their observations. While not all of them were fully his supporters, all of them detested that an unqualified woman was sent to destroy the education of their students. To control their actions. It would only make Fudge's fall harder once Dumbledore could act properly again.

He gave the teachers instructions on how to deal with the actions of Umbridge, mainly warning the students to keep their heads down and not antagonize her. It wasn't worth Fudge interfering more at the moment to protect the students. There were limits to what a teacher could do during detention after all. And what didn't kill you made you harder and he could state that his hands were tied with the way the Minister had it out for him. It wasn't true, but it was all a calculated move. And if Umbridge went too far, he could out her actions and make Fudge take the fall for it.

* * *

Harry knew that it was a bad idea to let Ron play Quidditch against Slytherin. He was a nervous wreck under pressure. And while he might have some talent, it wouldn't do him any good against the tactics of the Slytherins, which would certainly be thought up by Malfoy, who was a pro at getting under Ron's skin. Harry wouldn't stand for Malfoy making a mess out of the Quidditch match. Quidditch was decided on the pitch, not by outside influence. Well, he had the perfect way to thwart the annoying blonde's newest scheme.

Not to mention give the Gryffindor team a much better chance for the Quidditch Cup. He wanted to win that thing for a last time. His teammates, except for the unpleasant episode in first year, which had only driven home that when helping a friend, because he counted Hagrid as such, you had to make sure to cover your back in any way possible, had had his back. Well, a learning experience. But during the heir of Slytherin debacle the team had stood by him and they did too during the Tournament. And except for Wood graduating, this was still the same team he had started with four years ago. Angelina deserved a good time as captain and Ron wouldn't bring it.

Thus, he had decided to circumvent that problem. He brewed a simple, but strong, sleeping potion that was third-year level in the subject. Hermione had used the same one on the muffins for Crabbe and Goyle when they needed their hair to use for polyjuice potion to interrogate Malfoy. Everybody would suspect one of the Slytherins slipping Ron the potion before the match to take out Gryffindor's keeper to force them to either forfeit or play with an inexperienced replacement. Their bad that Harry knew an excellent keeper that had just been an idiot during the try-outs and been at the hospital wing, suffering from doxy egg poisoning.

And, which was the most important part in this, Cormac McLaggen had so much dirt hidden, which Harry knew all about, that he would behave and concentrate on his playing, instead of meddling with the rest of the team. Not to mention that Angelina and Alicia scared him shitless. All good conditions to make the Slytherins eat dirt.

The morning of the match Harry slipped a drugged muffin onto the plate next to Ron's seat. It was common knowledge that nothing could stop Ron from eating, not even the worst type of stress. He ate even more at those times. And taking any food from the plates around him was dangerous. Thus, there was no danger of anybody else taking the drugged muffin. And the potion would knock Ron out like a light for at least six hours. There wasn't any antidote, simply because the potion wasn't harmful, just annoying when used unplanned.

It worked perfectly. Ron ate the muffin, next to the other eight on the plate, before he suddenly fell forward, face-first, into his plate with eggs.

"Ew!" Lavender brown shrieked, "My blouse."

She had got hit from spraying eggs.

"Ron?" Hermione asked worried and shook Ron's shoulder, only to hear him snoring loudly, "How can he be asleep? Nobody falls asleep this way. There must have been a spell or potion involved. Probably a potion. He was eating breakfast after all."

"What do we do? The match is in an hour!" Angelina asked, panicking, "Oh, if this is the newest sabotage attempt of the Slytherins, I'm going to wring their necks."

"No idea, but I doubt Ron will wake up soon," Fred commented after doing a quick check on his brother with his wand.

"True, the charm detected some sleeping potion in him. Nothing bad, we use that one on one of our products, but there isn't any antidote, because it simply lets you sleep deeply. We need an immediate replacement, Angelina, or we can't play," George added.

"Shit, why does this have to happen today?" Angelina cursed, "Who could play keeper that has enough training and won't fall for the Slytherins' tricks and foul play?"

Harry decided to act.

"McLaggen, get your broom from your dorm. I saw you in that pick-up game last week and I guess you are the best chance we have to pay the Slytherins back for this stupid trick. But I warn you, none of that attitude you had in the game," Harry warned.

McLaggen nodded, knowing too well that Harry knew some pretty problematic things about him that he didn't want aired.

"Got it, Potter," He nodded and left quickly to get his broom from his dorm.

"Sure that is a good idea, Harry?" Katie asked, "Cormac isn't the most pleasant kind of player."

"He's too scared what Angelina or Alicia would do to him if he messes this up. Not to mention the twins. He would become their permanent demonstration dummy for their prank products, should he not behave," Harry stated confidently.

"True. That should keep him in line," Katie nodded happily.

* * *

The team only had to wait for fifteen minutes for their substitute keeper to arrive and they directly headed down to the locker room to give Cormac a quick run-down of the tactics they would be using during the game.

"Okay, team. This wasn't planned, but we will prove to the Slytherins that their sabotage won't win them this match. We have a great team, even if Cormac didn't train with us before. And Cormac, I want you to make those Slytherin chasers cry from frustration. They are going down today and going down hard. You aren't Wood, but you can be good when you concentrate on your job and leave the others alone. You know we are the best team Hogwarts has and we six have played together for three years now, would have been four if not for the Triwizard last year. We know how the others play. Leave things to us and just keep the hoops clean," Angelina addressed him.

"I'll do so, Captain," Cormac promised, knowing too well what the looks from the rest of the team meant.

He had to prove himself and if he didn't, he would suffer. But he knew that the matches against Slytherin always were a battle against their dirty tactics and perhaps, if he proved better than Weasley, he might take the spot from him. And he didn't want to have Angelina, Alicia, Harry, Fred and George gunning for him, and Katie was in his year, so she could make his life in classes more unpleasant. Quidditch was very important for Gryffindors after all.

Angelina gave some more instructions on how they would start off the match and then they walked out onto the pitch. Cormac had got a reserve set of robes from the twins, with Angelina quickly spelling his name onto the back. They were greeted by cheers from the Gryffindors and boos from the Slytherins.

"And there are the reigning champions, the Gryffindors. Led by new captain Angelina Johnson, they already had to quickly find a substitute player, due to some cowardly cheating in taking the normal keeper, Ron Weasley, out with a sleeping potion," Lee Jordan informed the crowd, which led to many boos against this act, "But the lions are determined to not let that stop them. Reserve keeper Cormac McLaggen has taken over the spot. You all know the other members of the team. Chasers, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell, beaters Fred and George Weasley and seeker, our Triwizard Champion, Harry Potter!"

Cheers came from three parts of the stadium, even if Harry could see that Umbridge didn't seem happy with the reaction this fact got from the students. It was rather brilliant of Lee.

"On the other side of the pitch the Slytherin team under captain Montague has arrived. There have been several changes compared to the team from two years ago. Former Captain Flint has graduated, as did their beaters and one chaser. Seemingly the new captain went more for brute force than skill," Lee commented, only to get the expected reprimand from Professor McGonagall.

But Harry thought Lee had a point. Crabbe and Goyle were the new beaters and except for Malfoy as seeker, the others were all tall, broad and muscled. They would have to look out for foul play in form of physical interference. Well, skill topped muscles. Madam Hooch asked the captains to step forward to shake hands and Montague predictably tried crushing Angelina's hand, but she didn't even flinch. Madam Hooch reminded both captains of playing fair, fat chance with the Slytherins, even if Malfoy didn't seem pleased by the replacement keeper. Harry saw that the Slytherin team had badges with crowns on them for some reason, which read: Weasley is our King.

Seemed as if Harry had prevented their plan to do something to destabilise Ron in his performance as keeper. Too bad for Malfoy that Harry was several steps ahead of him. The players mounted their brooms and kicked off when the whistle came. Angelina quickly secured the quaffle and sped towards the Slytherin hoops.

The match was hard, but the Gryffindors showed why they had won the cup two years ago. They played very well together, and the chasers and beaters pulled of manoeuvres that had been shown during the world cup as well. Cormac was first tested five minutes into the match and he looked determined. While not a perfect save, he prevented that the quaffle went into the hoop, which caused cheers from the Gryffindor section. Harry kept Malfoy very busy. He wanted to really show the little ferret up while not committing any foul. He had worked on his timing for the Wronski Feint until the match and was eager to see Malfoy eat dirt.

He pretended to have seen the snitch and shot down, Malfoy hot on his heels. Harry made sure to keep his body between the supposed snitch and Malfoy and concentrated on getting the timing just right. Malfoy had played for two years now and he wasn't a bad flyer. Harry was just much better, even if Malfoy would loudly deny it. When there were only a few feet until the ground, Harry pulled up from the steep dive and just avoided crashing. Malfoy meanwhile, who hadn't been prepared for this trick, shot into the ground at full speed, knocking himself out.

"And Malfoy is knocked out. I can't believe it! Potter pulled off a perfect Wronski Feint, just like Viktor Krum did last year at the World Cup. The match continues though, while Professor Snape hurries to see if his seeker can continue after some medical treatment. It doesn't seem like it. He conjured a stretcher. That means, Slytherin is short a player, and a very important one at that," Lee cheerily announced, which caused McGonagall to frown, but as he didn't say anything biased, she didn't interfere.

The Slytherin team seemed determined to punish Harry for knocking their seeker out, but Fred and George were onto them, using the fact that they had to watch one player less to their advantage. Slytherin didn't give up, they were using any means to give the Gryffindors trouble and Crabbe and Goyle hit the bludgers as hard at the opponent players as possible, but the Gryffindors were used to Wood's type of training. They had had worse. In the end, Harry easily caught the snitch, winning Gryffindor the match with a total score of 310:80 and Fred beat back the bludger that Crabbe had shot at him from behind after he had caught the snitch, for which Madam Hooch was berating the Slytherin beater for blatant cheating. The Gryffindor team had dominated the match and Angelina was extremely happy that her career as captain had started this well.

The team celebrated their first victory of the season, and without Malfoy, there was nobody trying to sour it. They had played well, their reserve keeper had held about half of the attempts of Slytherin to score, which was quite remarkable, considering that he didn't have any team training before the match. Harry especially relished the sour look on Umbridge's face. She had been trying to get anything to use against him since the start of the year, but he hadn't committed one foul during the match. The Wronski feint was perfectly permitted and it was Malfoy's fault for not recognising it in time.

The team went over into the locker room to shower and then continue on to the party at their common room. Harry seriously considered knocking Ron out in some way for the next match as well. They had done much better without him.

* * *

 **Okay, that's it for this week. Until next.**


	5. Underground

**Underground**

Dolores Umbridge was not a happy woman. Her authority at Hogwarts was undermined at every corner. The other teachers were not cooperating with the Ministry and she couldn't stand it. More, the Potter boy didn't give her any opportunity to punish him for being the liar he was. He simply read the book in her classes and she could never catch him outside while doing anything wrong. She needed to make sure that the rest of the students understood that the Ministry was always right, but for that, she needed to make an example of dissidents. She had thought her plan to get rid of the little liar over the summer was fool proof, but the two dementors that she had sent to his home had hit the wrong people.

Four muggle boys, no great loss in her opinion, had been kissed. The problem was, Amelia Bones was causing trouble with her investigation. Especially as it had come out that one of the kissed boys was Harry Potter's muggle cousin. And no matter what, the public would be in uproar if their saviour was kissed by a dementor. She had thought they could weather the storm easily, but the actual reaction had taken her by surprise. Her plan should have been fool proof. She had known that the boy had extreme reactions to dementors. The rumours of him learning the patronus charm were of course wild exaggeration. No fifteen years old boy could ever manage such an advanced charm. She had needed until her thirties to master it after all. And Potter's grades were nothing special.

They weren't bad, but nowhere near the top of his year. With that premise, the boy should have been dealt with, but he hadn't been there when the dementors attacked. She had heard that the boy never left the town he lived in until the end of summer from Percy Weasley, the new junior assistant of the Minister. A good source of information, as the young man wanted to please his superiors to make his way up in the ranks of the Ministry. It seemed that Potter always took care of school shopping close to the end of the summer break, often with Weasley's family. She had decided to use that.

The dementors had just been stupid in kissing the muggle boys when they couldn't find Potter. Without that slip, nothing would have been provable. She had made sure to not leave any paper trail and she had enough blackmail material to make the warden of Azkaban keep his mouth shut. But now, the DMLE was actually investigating how the dementors had got loose. Thankfully nothing would connect her with the incident. But she needed a new way to bring Potter to heel.

She had tried to call for punishment for the way he injured Lucius Malfoy's son during the Quidditch match, but all the other teachers, even Severus Snape, the one most sympathetic to her cause, had told her that there was nothing that could be done. It was an allowed move in the game, which had been celebrated during the last world cup when Krum used it. Malfoy simply had bad luck of falling for the feint. Quidditch was a hard sport and nothing permanent was done. The boy had to spend three days at the hospital wing with a concussion, after that he was back to classes. Normal at a school like Hogwarts.

She hated how nobody would punish the little halfblood for injuring a pureblood scion. Well, soon she would have enough power to make things change here at the school. It should have already been like that, but Cornelius had too many problems working around Amelia at the moment to pass new educational decrees to give her more power here at Hogwarts. Even he, as the Minister, needed the approval of the Wizengamot for that and they were all worried about possible rogue dementors. But over time that would fade away when no new incidents took place. And then she would make things happen to the advantage of the Ministry.

* * *

Harry watched how Hermione ranted again about the incompetence of Umbridge. The funny part was, she hadn't noticed that he had already acted against the problem, without ever telling her. She would have run to Dumbledore with the news and would have tried to drag control over the group away from him. Harry had arranged that those that actually wanted to learn defence skills to use them, both to pass their exams and having a chance against possible attacks, both from dark creatures and dark wizards, got lessons once a week, sorted by years. He had set an hour every second day aside for this.

At first, he had hesitated, not wanting to stick out his neck, especially not for those that believed the rubbish in the Daily Prophet, but his anger at Umbridge was stronger than his annoyance with his classmates. Not to mention that he had taken steps to prevent that anybody could find out what he was doing that wasn't part of the group.

Angelina was in the know, she was part of the seventh-years that he helped with their studies, and everybody had to sign a binding agreement that they wouldn't talk about being part of the group or in fact learning DADA outside of classes and not use what he taught them to harm others intentionally. He had openly told everybody that it was their decision to join, but he wouldn't teach anybody that didn't sign the agreement, as Umbridge was already out for his head. For the first meeting, he had simply set up a ward that obliviated everybody that left the meeting room without a signed agreement. He would cover all of his bases.

After all, he also didn't want Dumbledore to get an idea of Harry's true level before he had aced the OWLs and sat the NEWTs. The majority of his 'students' were from Gryffindor, but there also were several from other houses. Even Slytherin, which was one reason why he didn't tell Ron and Hermione. Mainly there were those from neutral and light families, but, to his surprise, Theodore Nott, a loner in his own year in Slytherin, had joined as well, saying that he only cared for passing his OWLs in DADA, as otherwise his father wouldn't hesitate to put him under the cruciatus curse. He had bluntly told Harry that he didn't care for either Dumbledore or Voldemort and just wanted to be left alone and get a good education, so that he wouldn't have to depend on his family fortune to make something out of himself.

Harry could support that stance, and the contract made sure that he wouldn't abuse his skills learned from Harry. And Theo's dry humour was certainly entertaining. His Quidditch practice was scheduled around this. He used Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for the training. Quidditch practice was Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturday mornings. And the ones he taught on the weekend were the sixth and seventh-years. They met in an empty classroom that was in a mostly unused part of the building.

To not be open for attack, should a teacher stumble over their group meetings despite his wards to deter them to other parts of the castle, he had managed to get permission from the most unlikely teacher present. Professor Binns. You only needed to ask the ghost if he would mind being the official sponsor of a school club meant to teach the students how to use historical means of defending themselves and an absent-minded okay was all that was needed to get their study group / club approved without having to go to one of the teachers that would be harder to convince, as they were all too cowed to stand up to Umbridge if it was found out.

Hermione was quite frustrated that none of the other students would join her study group idea, which only made sense, because they already got all the help they needed from Harry, who was admittedly the best student in DADA at Hogwarts. Even if he hadn't shown his full skills in class. She had tried roping him into being the teacher for her group, but he had refused, telling her that he had been repeatedly told to keep his head down around Umbridge and that nothing would stop her in looking up spells at the library or demanding that one of the other teachers helped when she couldn't get a spell.

Her face at his blunt refusal had been very entertaining. Hermione didn't like being told no and she disliked having her precious grades torpedoed even more. By a supposed teacher at that. She had tried 'talking sense into him' several times, but his answer didn't change. She didn't like that at all, but it was hard to argue when he used arguments that had been used against him repeatedly against her. Ron didn't really care either way. He hated studying and knew that Dumbledore didn't want Harry to learn too much.

Well, Harry had long-since got around their actions and he used the nights he sneaked out of the common room, ever since he got the Marauder's Map it had become really easy, to study things he was truly interested in. He planned to be as close as possible to mastery level when he left Hogwarts at the end of the year. And, as he had had trouble deciding which subjects to choose, as he was interested in too many, he had decided to take all of those to the next level. Surprisingly, for those that saw him in History classes, his favoured subjects were History of Magic, Ancient Runes, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms and Transfiguration. He also studied Arithmancy, mainly because it overlapped with Runes and Charms a lot, but it wasn't because he especially liked it, more out of necessity.

Harry knew that most masters only had one mastery, a few had two or three, those were older normally, like Dumbledore, who, for all his faults, held masteries in Transfiguration and Alchemy and was renowned for being well-educated in many other subjects as well. But he never took the time to sit mastery exams for them. There were multiple subject masters in Japan, where he had found out was a school for magic that used time compression wards like the Room of Requirement did to enable their students to fit their magical education in between their muggle education. Kyoto Spiritual Academy fit five years into the span of one year, meaning during the time the students would go to normal middle school in Japan, they actually studied magic. The muggles never noticed, as the school simply let it appear that the students were at a boarding school and left after one school year for home. Harry planned to get in contact with some masters to get them to officially sponsor his tests in front of the guilds of his chosen subjects.

It was an old system, which sadly hadn't been removed and replaced yet. It would already help if you didn't need the approval of a master to get into the mastery test but could apply on your own. It was one major obstacle for muggleborns to earn a mastery in any subject. Harry wondered how Hermione would react if she found out about it. Should be entertaining to watch. Especially as the headmaster didn't do anything with his influence to change at least the part about admittance through self-study, which generally was possible, but without help to get into the tests, it didn't help too much. Even if some muggleborns had found ways around that, like one partner of a shop owner in Espen Alley, that should have been a Runes Master. He did things other masters thought impossible. Well, good for him.

Harry's current plans were to go into hiding after returning from the Hogwarts Express. He didn't doubt for a second that the Dursleys would kick him out. Thanks to Sirius, he had found out that Dudley and his gang had by now died from the dementor's kiss. Muggle bodies simply couldn't survive for long without their soul. The doctors had tried everything they could think of, but nobody could heal the loss of a soul. Not even magic. The reason was declared as abuse of drugs. No, it would be the worst idea ever to return there. They would probably lash out against him in their grief. And he wouldn't even think badly of them for it.

While he couldn't stand Dudley, he had still been his cousin and he wouldn't have wanted him dead. Punished for his crimes, yes, but not dead. The idiot headmaster would probably still insist that he returned there for the wards, but Harry wouldn't do it. Normally, the results of the OWLs were ready two weeks into the summer break, according to what his Quidditch teammates had told him. That meant, he could send his application with the request for the oath of silence according to the law immediately after. And he was sure to ace everything.

Once he had sat the NEWTs, he would leave the country. The Ministry owls would be able to find him, as long as he wasn't too far away. Like say, China. But if he was in another country, he could play it off as being on vacation after the hard studying and testing time he had had. It would definitely be believable, especially as he had already spent last summer abroad most of the time. And only once he was acknowledged as a fully-qualified wizard would he tell the Order about his decision to leave, thanks to the treatment he had got all his life in Great Britain.

* * *

The Christmas surprise for the school wasn't a nice one. Just one week before the Christmas break would start, a large front-page article announced that Umbridge had finally managed to be named Hogwarts High Inquisitor, with power to inspect the classes of other teachers, supposedly to make sure they achieved the required standard. A joke of epic proportions, as Umbridge herself was the second-worst teacher at the whole school. Only Binns was worse, as he was stuck on one topic, creature uprisings. Mainly goblins though.

Even Snape ranked higher than her, despite him abusing all houses besides Slytherin. The paper reported that Fudge was championing an educational reform, as there had been many complaints about sinking standards at Hogwarts. Not surprising, as Dumbledore didn't want the students educated at high levels, but with how he wanted an even lower level of education than the old coot, he was a hypocrite of the highest order.

Harry suspected that this step had been planned to be taken much earlier in the school year, but, thanks to the investigation into the dementors kissing Dudley and his friends, it hadn't been achieved before now. Umbridge would be sitting in classes while the other teachers taught. Well, she wouldn't get any kind of really useful information and getting a teacher expelled from Hogwarts still required time. She had to find proof that a teacher was unsuited and give at least three months to improve their performance before she could sack them. And that would be exactly before the end-of-year exams. Not the best point in time if you wanted to collect points with influential parents. Umbridge wouldn't be able to conduct many visits to classes before the students left for Christmas.

And, to have a proper reason to put teachers on probation, she would have to inspect at least three classes, to exclude the possibility of the observed class not being the norm. And Harry would bet that Dumbledore would insist on that much, as the headmaster of the school. Meaning, next to her own classes, she would have to manage sitting in on thirty-three class periods. It should take a full month at least to achieve that, as Harry doubted she would get a time-turner from the Department of Mysteries, who guarded them. They were notoriously independent from the Minister's office. Then February, March and April to give the teachers that she would put on probation a chance to improve their performance, which would be right at the beginning of the exam period.

What she could manage, if she declared a teacher totally unsuited, which Harry suspected would be the fate of Trelawney, Binns and possibly Hagrid, was making it clear that it would be their last year teaching and the changes would only take effect for the new school year. Meaning, the ministry wouldn't be able to send a new teacher that they liked before the new school year started, for which Dumbledore should manage to find suited substitutes. Probably while sending the bill for ousting Binns to Fudge, as he was the one forcing that additional expense onto the school. The new law after all only allowed the Ministry to decide onto a teacher if the headmaster couldn't find one. And with the summer break at his disposal, Dumbledore would manage for any class outside of DADA, if he didn't finally decide to let Snape have his wish.

Well, it wouldn't be Harry's problem anymore. He would be away.

* * *

Harry sat on his bed at Grimmauld Place after a decidedly unusual nightmare. The incident with watching how Voldemort's snake attacked Mr Weasley was decidedly strange. He knew for sure that he had been at his dorm in Gryffindor Tower. He had been asleep in his bed and you couldn't simply portkey or apparate students from the school to the Ministry. That was impossible. Not to mention turn Harry into a snake and back. It had been some kind of vision. Thankfully, thanks to his warning, Mr Weasley had been found in time and taken to St. Mungo's. He was still very sick, but out of mortal danger.

The question was, how the hell did he get that vision? He knew that there was some strange connection between himself and Voldemort through his scar. One reason why he had made sure to study Occlumency. It lessened the pain being close to Voldemort caused and stopped the dreams he had about what Voldemort was up to. How had this one slipped through his defences? That was the important question. And it also brought up the question, why had the scar acted up when he was close to Dumbledore? While he didn't like the old man, the sheer hate he had felt at that moment was disconcerting.

Alright, he needed to do some research. As he didn't have the Room of Requirement at his disposal right now, he would take the next best thing. The Black library. Decision made, he stood from his bed, he had protested sharing a room with Ron, as he had got his own room from Sirius last summer already, which was very useful now, and left the room.

* * *

Sirius found Harry reading one of the books that held information about obscure magic, with a deep frown on his face. Deciding that something was up that was best discussed in private, he activated the wards on the room that kept anybody out that didn't have Sirius' express permission.

"What's eating you up, pup?" Sirius asked.

"The vision I had about the snake attacking Mr Weasley. I'm disturbed that I saw it from the snake's perspective, which should have been impossible, as I was in my bed at Hogwarts," Harry answered, "I know that there is a strange connection between my scar and Voldemort, it has hurt when I was close to him, like when he possessed Quirrell in my first year."

"That does indeed sound strange," Sirius agreed, "What exactly are the symptoms?"

Harry listed everything he had noticed.

"Hm, and you say occlumency didn't work," Sirius pondered.

"It stopped the dreams I had while Voldemort didn't have a body after the one I told you about in the letter before I went to watch the finals of the Quidditch World Cup. I looked into ways to stop those dreams once I was back at school. And when Voldemort was close to me at the graveyard, it also lessened the effect. It was much worse in my first year at Hogwarts," Harry explained.

"That doesn't sound like a normal mental intrusion that you get via legilimency," Sirius stated, "Especially as legilimency of any kind needs eye-contact. No, there is something else. I would understand if you saw things Voldemort himself sees when he's really emotional. That goes along with the observations of both your scar aching and the times you got those dream visions. But the snake is disturbing."

He went over to a shelf and took out two books, putting them onto the table, quickly turning the pages until he found what he had been looking for.

"We need to talk to Bill Weasley as soon as possible, Harry. If it is what I fear it is, we need the assistance of a trained curse-breaker," Sirius declared.

"Will you tell me your suspicions?" Harry asked.

"A soul leech. One step below the abomination that is called a horcrux. And even my dark family wouldn't have dared making a horcrux. They are a sacrilege against magic," Sirius answered.

"What exactly is a horcrux?" Harry asked.

"A phylactery. A container that holds part of a person's soul in it. You create one by performing a black magic ritual, not just dark magic, and then killing an innocent in cold blood. Many of the child sacrifices in history were performed to create one of those," Sirius spat.

"That's horrible!" Harry exclaimed.

"True."

"And what is the difference to a soul leech?"

"A soul leech is the result of a botched up horcrux ritual. It has only happened a handful of times in history, before the knowledge on how to create a horcrux, and what they actually were, was basically eradicated from magical society. I only know about this, as I was trained as the Black heir until I ran away when I was sixteen. My family, as you know, was as dark as they came. But my grandfather explicitly warned my brother and me from ever tempering with the soul. It is sacrosanct to magic. A damaged soul damages your magic as well, if you aren't very, very careful. It will also damage your mind for sure.

"One example of causing damage to the soul of a magical child is the creation of an obscurial. Newt Scamander came across two children that had become obscurials when he was still a young man. It is caused by a child being hurt by people around them in a way that they fear their magic and suppress it unconsciously. It normally will break out in violent ways when you least expect it. Magical society had believed that they had managed to stop them being created, but it was proven wrong in the 1920's by Scamander. From what I learned in my family's history lessons, Grindelwald tried gaining control over a young wizard orphan, I think is name was Credence, no idea about the surname, who was abused by his foster mother. She was a violent anti-witch agitator and ran a campaign in New York when Scamander arrived there.

"Grindelwald wanted to use the power of the obscurial for his own plans, but Scamander and an American auror, one Porpentina Goldstein, managed to stop his plans, even if the MACUSA managed to lose Grindelwald somehow, even if he had been arrested already, and he could continue his war. But it brought to attention how dangerous it was to have magical children harmed by anybody that condemned their magic. How dangerous damage to a witch or wizard's soul could end up. It led to any magical children born in magical families being treasured all the more, at least until Voldemort came along and didn't care if he or his followers killed innocent children, next to their parents, if the family got into his way in some way.

"There are masters of soul magic in other countries, but they normally avoid Europe, as the ideas of what is dark are quite screwed up here. Most things that most people decry as dark are actually grey, and those are taught at schools like Akren and to some degree Durmstrang. Durmstrang is the only school in Europe that does teach any of those things. Stupid, if you ask me, as grey magic should be known to counter actual dark magic. Back to the topic. Where a horcrux requires that the container is destroyed beyond magical repair to get rid of the soul piece, a soul leech can be cleansed with the right method," Sirius explained.

"And you are sure that I can't be a horcrux?" Harry asked worried.

"Yes, because you have to prepare a container to make it receptive for the soul piece. If he actually made a horcrux, it would act like him, trying to take over the person holding it, taking away said person's magic to sustain itself and possibly come alive again," Sirius described things.

"We can be sure he made one. The description you just gave me, exactly matches what the diary that possessed Ginny Weasley in her first year did to her. Voldemort's teenage self could interact with the outside if you wrote in the diary and leeched off Ginny's life energy to come back to life," Harry gravely stated, "But I destroyed that with a basilisk fang."

"Shit. That's really bad. Voldemort was already a problem when mortal, add this and we will have to find out how many horcruxes there are, because he would have died, had that been the only one he made. I'll have to talk to Moody and Bill for sure. They are probably the ones that know best how to possibly find them and destroy them. Getting basilisk venom is a tad bit hard," Sirius commented.

"I can't help there either. I sold the carcass, as it was my property, as I had single-handedly slain it," Harry admitted.

"No problem, I would have done the same," Sirius waved him off, "It was too much money to waste it."

"So, as he wouldn't have wanted to make me a horcrux and wouldn't have had the time to prepare me, I can't be a horcrux. How does one go about getting the soul piece out?" Harry asked.

"We need to do it during the night of the new moon with a specific ritual. The easy part will be to get Remus to donate some blood. Werewolf blood is cursed and will attract other curses like a magnet. During the night of the new moon it will be at its weakest and the soul leech wouldn't gain too much power until we can exorcise it. The exorcism is part of what curse-breakers learn, thus I want Bill involved," Sirius answered.

"Okay. New moon will be three days before I have to return to school. Will it cause any problems with my body or magic?" Harry asked.

"No. You will feel a gradual increase of your magic levels and better access to your reserves. Simply because the soul leech would have fed from your magic to sustain itself. It's the reason why muggles can't be possessed for a long time by spirits. They can't sustain them," Sirius pointed out.

"Makes sense. I can't wait to be free of that stupid connection," Harry sighed.

"Believe me, pup, me too," Sirius nodded seriously.

* * *

Thankfully it didn't take long to get a hold of Bill. He was coming over for dinner regularly these days, as his father was at St. Mungo's. It helped with distracting his siblings from the terrifying incident. Sirius asked him if they could talk in private after dinner and he agreed, being curious what it could be about. He was a little surprised to find Harry waiting in the room Sirius led him into.

"Okay, what is going on?" Bill asked.

Sirius activated the privacy wards around the room and both men took seats.

"You know about the connection that exists between my scar and Voldemort?" Harry half asked, half stated.

"Yes, Moody was very concerned about it," Bill nodded.

"I suspect it is a soul leech, Bill," Sirius told him.

"A soul leech? But that would mean he was stupid enough to make horcruxes!" Bill exclaimed.

"Going by the description of how his diary possessed your sister, that can be taken for a fact," Sirius confirmed.

"The diary?" Bill asked.

"Didn't your parents tell you what happened in Ginny's first year at Hogwarts?" Harry asked surprised.

"Bits and pieces. They insisted it would be best for Ginny if she wasn't constantly reminded of it," Bill answered, "I know that she was involved in the Chamber of Secrets drama at Hogwarts and had suffered severe trauma from it."

"That's barely touching the surface," Harry sighed and told Bill the whole story, which made the redhead quite angry at the end of the story.

"You want to tell me that nobody thought it prudent to tell me that my little sister was possessed by a horcrux for a year, when I would have been the most qualified to check if all influence over her was gone?" He exclaimed.

"No idea if your parents know what the diary was," Sirius replied, "I only know about the nature of these things because I am a Black and trained in the dark arts. And even my family warned my brother and me to never go down that path. But Dumbledore would have known and should have acted."

"Damn straight. I'm going to examine Ginny to see if there was some dark residue left, no matter what Mum and Dad might claim. I want to be sure that nothing is wrong with her. Once was bad enough. Back to the soul leech. I would need to test if it truly was one, Harry," Bill addressed the youngest male in the room.

"Sure, go ahead, Bill," Harry nodded and closed his eyes when Bill pointed his wand at his head.

"You can open your eyes again, Harry," Bill said after a minute.

"And?" Sirius asked.

"It is definitely a soul leech, which means we can easily dispatch it. Thankfully we have easy access to a werewolf. Getting the blood is normally the most difficult part in the ritual," Bill commented.

"Very true. So, you're in for performing the exorcism on the new moon?" Sirius asked.

"Certainly. The sooner we get that thing out of Harry's scar, the better. I'll inform Professor Dumbledore about my findings and that I'll take care of things. I'll also give him a piece of my mind about not being asked to help with finding and destroying any other horcruxes You-Know-Who has made. After all, with him managing to regain solid form after the diary was destroyed, we can be certain that there is at least one other. Probably more, as I guess he would have considered more better. Even if any decent cursebreaker could have told him that it was a very bad idea. He could have lost his magic fully if he had messed up things," Bill told the other two.

"I guess that's why it took him that long to come back. He told me when he possessed Quirrell that the only magic he had left was possessing others. If he did so, he could somewhat use their magic. But he was weak back then, depending on unicorn blood to stay alive," Harry informed Bill, as Sirius already knew the story.

"A clear sign that making horcruxes left him insane and he didn't know about the true nature of those things. This actually makes it easier to get rid of him," Bill commented.

"How so?" Harry asked.

"You know that unicorn blood curses you if you drink it?" Bill asked.

"Yes, Firenze the centaur told me so when he saved me when I found Quirrell in disguise drinking the blood of the unicorn he had killed," Harry nodded.

"Curses don't play well together. It's one thing every cursebreaker learns in his first year of training. It takes a very advanced arithmancer to even connect two minor curses. When we go into the graves, we always only find one curse per object. The ancient Egyptian mages used several layers to add several curses to the graves. Like the first layer consists of a ward, then followed up by cursed spikes that let any cut bleed much more than normally, another ward and then cursed arrows that make your blood freeze. Intermixed with poisonous gases and the like. But curses always come in single units. The combination of different ways makes the protections as powerful as they are. One reason why the tombs were decorated that much. It hides the curses better," Bill explained.

"Now, the unicorn blood curse is one of the strongest known curses in the magical world. The same is true for the horcrux. Splitting your soul curses you and leaves a permanent mark on you, even if you reversed the deed by showing remorse, which nearly no dark wizard ever did. Both of those curses mark the soul of the one performing the act. That means, even if it was Quirrell that drank the blood, with You-Know-Who possessing his body, he got the same curse on top of the horcrux curse."

"What would the effects be, Bill?" Sirius asked.

"Normally, his body should show signs of sped up decay. I suspect, but can't prove it, that currently the effect is slowed down by the leech in Harry's scar. Like a buffer between the two effects. I heard he took your blood to perform the ritual that gave him back his body. That doubles the connection, as blood is the main carrier of magic in a wizard's body. Harry's magic would connect to the blood it is familiar with, allowing You-Know-Who to be sustained that way. Once the scar is free of the leech, the transfer of untainted magic will stop. Then the curses will clash with each other and degenerate the body he inhabits to the point that he will need a new one," Bill pointed out.

"And if we get all of his horcruxes before that point, he would die," Sirius realised, "That's great news."

Bill nodded, and Harry smiled.

"I can't wait to get this done. I want to be free of that stupid idiot always coming after me, because my mother managed to protect me when he came for my family," Harry declared.

"I'll have everything prepared. Leave everything else to the Order. We will see him finished off for good this time around, now that we know how to do it," Bill declared and the three soon after separated again to do some other things.

* * *

Harry didn't look the least bit contrite the day after the new moon, when Professor Dumbledore decided to confront him, Sirius, Remus and Bill over their actions, which they hadn't coordinated with him.

"What were you thinking doing that ritual? Do you want to be sent to Azkaban for performing a ritual that used blood?" He asked angrily.

"The Merlin accords state, Professor, that any kind of ritual that is meant to break a health problem for a person, especially one that came into being without any fault of their own, was an exception to the ban of rituals using forbidden parts. Harry got the soul leech in his scar from the botched-up attempt of You-Know-Who to make another horcrux. And you really should have told me much earlier that the diary that possessed my sister was a horcrux of all things. Things like that are part of my job!" Bill countered the accusation.

"I didn't want the information to fall into the wrong hands," Dumbledore replied, clearly shocked that Bill knew what a horcrux was in the first place.

"Don't be that surprised. Horcruxes have been around since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. I have come across about a dozen of them while working as a cursebreaker for Gringotts in Egypt. They attempted to achieve immortality that way, which doesn't actually work. Once the life energy of a person is used up, they die, otherwise there would be many more ancient Egyptian pharaohs running around," Bill pointed out, "Which was why people also tried to find ways to steal life energy from other people, to overcome that effect. And that wasn't very effective, as the person stolen from mustn't die, otherwise the stolen energy would dissipate, as it is still bound to the original owner until it was used up. There was one story that a squib called Ende wrote, I think, that's popular with the muggles. Something about a little girl and a time-stealing agency."

"But the invention of horcruxes was accredited to Herpo the Foul," Dumbledore stated.

"I guess you read that incomplete work 'The Darkest Arts'," Bill commented, "That book might have some information about the topic, but it by far leaves out much better methods of dealing with the matter. While it is true that ultimately the container of a horcrux has to be destroyed, it doesn't mean that you can't choose what this container will be. The goblins hate horcruxes with a passion, as the ones making them normally taint invaluable treasures by using them. As they didn't want to lose the treasures from the tombs, they have worked out a way to transfer the soul piece into a worthless object that can be destroyed without repercussions. Normally we use simple pieces of wood to do it. One bit of fiendfire in a specially created box so that it can't spread, and the problem is solved."

"But, why isn't that known?" Dumbledore asked aghast.

"Do you honestly think that the goblins of all races would freely help out wizards?" Bill asked sarcastically, "They would rather laugh secretly about us not knowing something they had worked out centuries ago. Not too surprising, when you consider how the Ministry treats them all the time, not to mention the pureblood supremacy supporters. Even some normally decent people look down on goblins."

"Well, I'm finally free of that stupid connection, which means, I'm not going to go to the occlumency lessons you arranged with Snape. Which is a stupid idea anyway, as he wouldn't be able to look past the fact that I'm James Potter's son. I have read up on the topic in the Black library and you need trust between teacher and student, as the teacher will be privy to the deepest secrets of the student while he attempts to help the student to detect intrusion. And I will never allow a bastard like Snape to go through my mind," Harry declared.

"Professor Snape has my full trust, Harry," Dumbledore insisted.

"Nice, but he doesn't have even a tiny bit of mine. He treated me like trash from the first Potions lesson on and nobody has ever seen fit to reign him in. The one thing he ever did for me was muttering counter curses against the attempt to get my broom to throw me off during my first Quidditch match. Otherwise he has done his best to make my life at Hogwarts horrible and get me expelled. I get that he couldn't stand my dad, but a teacher like him should at least manage to be neutral. I don't expect him to like me, but no other teacher at any other school would be allowed to bully, and yes, it is bullying, which I could easily prove with countless pensieve memories, a student like he does," Harry fiercely pointed out.

"There are reasons why he had to act like that. His position as a spy requires it," Dumbledore tried to smooth things over.

"That's the worst excuse I ever heard. There would be ways to explain why he had to hide how he actually felt to Voldemort and the other Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy actually brought it up with Voldemort when the whole group of Death Eaters that managed to stay out of Azkaban was summoned into that graveyard. He called it his public mask. It's called professional behaviour that the headmaster of the school insists on teachers not tormenting their students. But you wouldn't know about that.

"After all, you don't even step in when Umbridge tortures students with blood quills. I have seen the wounds on the backs of the hands of those students she could justify giving detention. That doesn't sound like the school being a safe place to learn at. And even if the Ministry is giving you trouble, one word to Amelia Bones about this would force Umbridge to stop what she's doing. You won't get her out of Hogwarts, Fudge will prevent it, but she wouldn't be allowed to use torture devices on students. And I know she would love to get me into detention, but I don't give her any points to attack me for," Harry countered.

"Harry, mind your tone. There is no reason to act like this," Dumbledore chided.

"Oh, so it's okay for a grown-up man, a teacher at that, to behave like a child that didn't get his will, but not for me to voice well-founded complaints? I don't like that double standards are applied here. But that is nothing new either, is it? Otherwise certain Slytherins, Malfoy in the lead, would get detention for their misdeeds, which others for the same infraction get. Don't bother denying it, I can prove that as well. As you clearly don't care about the things going on at the school, don't expect me to bother either. I am too busy with my OWLs, as the teachers are heaping the work onto us all. Not to mention finding ways to avoid Umbridge all the time. And you made it more than clear to me since last summer that you didn't want to be seen with me for too long and ignored me totally. So, well, just continue like that, but don't expect me to care from now on," Harry stated and left the room before he would say something he would regret.

"He's turning rebellious," Dumbledore sighed.

"No, he's opened his eyes to reality," Remus, the one Dumbledore didn't expect to object his opinion, spoke up.

"True, I remember from my own time at Hogwarts that things are exactly as Harry described them. While I might not have had the dangerous 'adventures' he had, every student outside of Slytherin knew that Snape was a biased and unfair teacher, who didn't care the least for the students in other houses but his own. Not to mention that without lots of self-study you wouldn't get anywhere in his class, which is a joke, as he demands an O to qualify for his NEWT course. If he wanted students to have those grades, he should start explaining things in class. And all of my younger siblings can confirm this estimation, even Percy was unhappy how he conducted his classes," Bill threw in.

"It's no wonder that, if you only disappoint a person continuously, they lose trust in you," Remus pointed out, "And I have seen what happened at the school during the one year I taught there. It's no wonder that Harry is frustrated with the way things are. You allow Severus to let Draco Malfoy get away with things that would have seen us in detention until we were blue in the face, when we were at school. And we were right devils at time. But we were punished for them. Deservedly."

"From what Harry told me about his years at Hogwarts, he always had to deal with things that shouldn't have happened on his own, or with some support from his friends. That's not the way a child should grow up. You don't want to admit it, but you messed up big time with Harry, Dumbledore. And it's coming to bite you. Right now, he is directing the majority of his anger and disappointment against Snape and Umbridge, next to the idiot Fudge of course, but if you would just exercise your powers as headmaster properly, a lot of that would disappear already. But then again, you also didn't act against those students that sent others to the hospital wing in our time with the needed harshness. I don't know how many of our classmates became victims of future Death Eaters. And you wondered why our revenge pranks took on nasty forms," Sirius scoffed.

"I tried making them realise that what they did was wrong," Dumbledore tried.

"By giving them a slap on the hand and telling them to not be a bad boy or girl again. I can tell you that Bellatrix laughed about those soft detentions and wasn't deterred in any way from her course. Point deductions and having to write lines won't change somebody that tortured and nearly killed another student. And before you tell me about my own infraction with Snape, I told you back then and I will repeat it now, I only mentioned how to stop the willow in passing when I discussed it with Marlene on our way to Herbology. You might remember that she loved the subject and I wanted to score with her. Snape overheard it and then did the rest on his own. He might have made it look as if I dared him to go down the tunnel under the willow, but it was all himself who wanted to get something against our group.

"He told his side of the story to anybody he could tell, as you at least managed to not make him blab, as it would have ruined Remus' chances on an education, but his stupidity and nastiness weren't my fault," Sirius declared, "And while we went too far in how we humiliated him at times, at least we didn't curse him in the back whenever possible. We acted up front."

This was a sore point. Snape let the other members of the Order believe that Sirius had tried to get him killed while they were students. While Sirius had entertained the idea, he would never have gone through with it. Remus meant too much to him to do something that foolish.

Dumbledore didn't like that all three men wouldn't budge on their point. He disliked that Harry was now thinking more about things. While it was great news that he didn't have to die for Voldemort to be defeated, he hated that information that he hadn't wanted to give out of his hands until he decided it was the right time had found its way into the hands of those that weren't following him without asking questions. That was never a good thing in his opinion. Well, at least Harry's rebellion at the moment only included distancing himself from him, which he himself had already done during the year, as he didn't want Voldemort to get the idea that he could use Harry against him.

He hadn't expected to find a way to free Harry from the dark magic in his scar, which he had believed to be a horcrux. To now find out that it was just a soul leech was surprising, and it would require an adjustment of his plans. He would let Harry cool down for a while before he offered his support. And while he would have to make sure that Umbridge couldn't cause too much trouble for the school with her inspections, he also knew that the time when Voldemort would come out into the open wasn't too far away anymore.

And at least the three men wanted to help getting rid of Voldemort as much as he wanted to see him gone. He was getting too old to battle dark lords. Right now, he could still stand up to Voldemort, but in a few more years that would be different. He needed to get this mess wrapped up before that point in time to reap the benefits of being the only one to defeat two dark lords in his life.


	6. First there are OWLs

**Here is this week's new chapter, not many more to go now. Enjoy.**

* * *

 **First There are OWLs…**

Harry stood in front of the group that included the second and third years. He had got a few new members for his Defence Group after the Christmas break, as some members had convinced friends that it would be a good idea. While they couldn't talk openly about it, giving hints that they knew a way to learn the subject better mostly got the ones that didn't like Umbridge to come. And the same precautions were then enacted as with the others that had already been part of the group for the first term of the school year.

"Welcome to the first meeting of the DG for the new year. Most of you already know what we are doing in this group, namely making up for the lousy teaching that Umbridge calls conducting a class. We cover practical means of actually defending yourselves against both dark creatures and dark wizards. For the ones that are here for the first time, I will have you demonstrate a number of spells that are part of what you should have learned in class by now to see what we need to work on most.

"I personally don't care if you believe me about my declaration that Voldemort is back. I stand to what I said, but I won't force anybody to take my side in this. But I will tell you that you need to be capable in this subject, as unpleasant wizards and creatures don't really need a dark lord to be nuisances. If your main goal for being here is just doing much better in your class and actually having a chance at passing the end-of-year exams, that's perfectly alright with me.

"For the ones that already know the drill, pair up and practice disarming and shielding charms. I want you to have one of you disarm for five minutes, while the other one tries to shield. After that time, switch positions. The ones shielding will have their back to the walls, the ones disarming to the middle of the room," Harry instructed, and the group quickly built pairs, while he went over to the three that were here for the first time. Two Ravenclaws from Third year and one Hufflepuff from second year.

"Alright, let's go over to the shooting range and you can show me how far you are in the basic spells of your year. I will call out a spell and I want you to give it your best shot. It doesn't matter if it isn't perfect, that's what this group is for after all, giving you assistance in getting proficient," Harry told them, "I also need your names."

"Okay. That doesn't sound too bad," The Hufflepuff boy nodded and stepped towards the range, "I'm Alec Ivory."

It was mainly a dummy at the end with a target placed onto the torso and Alec took out his wand to begin.

"We will start simple. A disarming charm please," Harry started while holding a clipboard with a piece of parchment that had a list of spell names on it.

He had created the list after the first few sessions with his groups to have an idea what he needed to work on most. Once he got the idea, he let everybody perform the spells to get their level and then put them into groups to work on the same spell. After all, it would have been stupid to let a group work on stunners if they hadn't even mastered the disarming spell, which was much easier. He let Alec perform all fifteen spells on his list, before he continued with Angela, the girl from Ravenclaw, in the same way. Of course, he had created a list for each year, otherwise it would have been unfair.

Once he had a solid idea of their level, he added them to different groups to practice with the others. He went around, demonstrating spells and correcting the groups in their performance, also giving advice how to improve their spell casting. The three newcomers were quickly more at ease when they saw how Harry conducted the group sessions and at the end they were convinced to stay as regular members and signed the agreement after Harry told them the consequences of going against it, also giving the reasons why things were done this way. They had enjoyed their time here and told Harry that he was a great teacher, which he was quite pleased to hear.

* * *

Hermione was in a frenzy. OWL exams were the next week and she was cramming every bit of information she could into her mind. She had stopped following Harry too closely a month before the exams would begin, telling the headmaster that Harry could hardly cause too many problems when he had to prepare for the OWLs as well. Thankfully the headmaster had agreed with her in that aspect and she and Ron could concentrate on their own studies, as the OWLs were immensely important for their future. Even if Hermione thought that only she among her group truly understood how important.

She fully intended to become the top student of her year again. She had cleared with Professor McGonagall that she could simply sit the Muggle Studies OWL without having attended the classes for the past two years. To her surprise, it had been easily permitted. She hadn't known that you could apply for any kind of subject to take an OWL in, even beyond the normal twelve subjects that Hogwarts offered. She wasn't too happy that she had only found out about magical language courses on her last birthday last September, when Harry gave her the one for French for a birthday present, telling her that he had only recently found out about it and thought it perfect for her, as she had told him and Ron that her parents liked to go on vacation in France.

It was a very thoughtful gift and she had loved learning another language perfectly in just one year. Had she known the option existed before, she would have done more languages over the years and could have taken the language OWL as well, which required proving that you were fluent in two languages. Well, she would remedy that next year. It was possible to sit OWLs for unusual subjects a year later, if you had the qualifications. Now she understood better how Percy managed to get twelve OWLs. Ron, when she had asked about it, told her that Percy had taken Care of Magical Creatures in self-study, thanks to how much Charlie had always told about his favourite subject at home, he didn't have too much to cover, and also took the language OWL, as he had earned the money for buying the courses himself.

It cleared up how he had managed that, when she had tried to go that path in her third year and realised in the end that even with a time-turner, it was too much work to do. But with just having to learn two languages with magical support, well, that was much easier. Well, eleven OWLs were still a very impressive result, especially as she planned to ace all of them. DADA was a sore point for her, as, with all of her other studies, she didn't feel properly prepared for the subject, as their teacher this year was horrible. She felt that if Harry had only agreed to her plan of teaching an underground study group, it would be much better.

But Harry had refused to do something that could come to bite him in the back. And soon after, she had been too busy working on these things on her own. At least, so far, Umbridge hadn't totally taken over control at the school, even if she was working towards that goal. Her inspections of classes had been horrible, but most teachers managed to prove their competency. And the only one that had been put onto probation was Trelawney. Hagrid had just managed to avoid that fate, even if rumour had it that it was only on insistence of Dumbledore that Umbridge couldn't just declare him unsuited based on one lesson where he didn't have much forewarning and his part-creature heritage.

Dumbledore, rightfully in Hermione's opinion, with the backing of the Department of Magical Education, had insisted that Umbridge had to inspect three classes in different years, including all houses. Meaning, she couldn't just go to the ones where the Slytherins would give her biased comments, she had to attend more of them. Dumbledore also had given her some guidelines that he demanded to be fulfilled before he would accept a teacher being put on probation and following that, if the teacher still failed to meet the standards, fired.

According to what the headmaster had told her and Ron during one of their meetings with him, Umbridge had to ensure that all observations were objective and could be proven with pensieve memories. The ones to ultimately decide the probation of a teacher would be Umbridge, as the High Inquisitor, Professor Marchbanks, as the head of the DME, the Minister of Magic, as he insisted on being involved, Professor Tofty, a long-standing member of the Wizarding Examination Committee and regular examiner for OWL and NEWT exams at Hogwarts, and Headmaster Dumbledore himself.

With five people making up their mind about the quality of the teachers, it was more balanced than just having the extremely biased opinion of Umbridge as the base. Trelawney got the negative marks from four of the five, with only the headmaster supporting her, not too surprising for Hermione. She also knew that Professor Binns would only teach until the end of the school year, a compromise that the headmaster had worked out after he got the promise from the Minister that the Ministry would cover the additional costs for the new teacher by increasing the budget they gave Hogwarts each year.

He had fully accepted the conclusions Umbridge had come to in the subject, but he could counter the demands by pointing out, with proof, that he had tried to get the increased budget permitted for ten years by now and had always been refused. Thus, if they wanted to show some success with their educational reform, they would have to cover the bill for it. Madam Marchbanks and Professor Tofty fully agreed with Dumbledore in that area and, as Fudge had been boxed into a corner, he had given in, as he wanted to use the opening for one of his cronies. The main problem was that they were all mostly brainless idiots and Madam Marchbanks would conduct the interview, as the Minister and Umbridge didn't want Dumbledore to do it, stating that he was responsible for the current situation as headmaster.

Hagrid had surprisingly improved a lot for the second inspected lesson and Umbridge hadn't managed to get him put on probation for the first inspected one, which hadn't gone well, what with Malfoy and his ilk giving untrue statements. While Professors Marchbanks and Tofty advised to get Hagrid some more training in how to teach a class properly, something they noticed had been neglected with many teachers at the school, they were convinced that once that was done, Hagrid would be a great teacher, as he loved his subject and knew all there was to know about magical creatures. It was a toad the Minister had been reluctant to swallow, nothing to say about the fury Umbridge showed at being foiled at getting rid of Dumbledore's biggest supporter at the school.

All in all, some suggestions for improvement of classes had been given and the headmaster had promised to see them realised by at least the beginning of the next school year, as long as it was within the means given to the school, meaning the budget. He had pointed out other areas of problems, where the Board of Governors simply refused to free the monetary means to actually do what was necessary. Like buying new brooms for the flying classes. Fudge and Umbridge hadn't liked that Dumbledore had managed to redirect their attacks into places where they were under attack, after all, the Ministry had a seat on the Board of Governors.

Hermione didn't notice that Harry wasn't present at the library or the common room most of the time during her studying. She assumed that he was at the other place to where she was working, similar to Ron thought the same. Actually, as he had lost his two annoying minders to OWL preparation, he was using the Room of Requirement to the fullest, as he would lose that resource once he had left the school at the end of the year. And with the additional study time inside the room, Harry was progressing incredibly fast and he was sure that he would be ready to take his mastery exams once he got out of Great Britain.

* * *

Harry watched how the examiners arrived the evening before the first OWL exam would be taken. Dumbledore greeted them, while Umbridge showed a forced smile. It was clear that she had wanted to be the one in the position of headmistress. Good thing that she hadn't managed that part so far. While Dumbledore was a git, he at least didn't torture the students. And Harry had plans what to do with the toad once the whole examination circus was done. He didn't want to disturb his classmates and the seventh-years, as these tests were important for them. And they were also his ticket to freedom.

But he had found an amusing charm that would neutralise the toad without killing her. Though the counter had been lost to normal magicals about four hundred years ago. It would be perfect. Well, tonight he wouldn't use the room, as he wanted to have a normal night of sleep, and the risk of any of the others in his dorm waking up from nerves and discovering his absence was too big to risk. It would be much easier to disappear during the day, in between the tests. Though mostly to relax. He was done with his studies for now, he would resume them to revise for NEWTs and mastery exams after the OWLs were done.

The schedule for the tests was that first the first to fourth years went through their tests, then the OWLs were sat and following that the NEWTs and end-of-year exams for the sixth-years at the same time. The teachers would test the sixth years while the seventh-years did their written tests. Harry knew that he didn't have to fear anything from the OWLs. And he had applied for all OWL subjects Hogwarts offered, next to Duelling, Languages, Warding and Healing. The time to hide his abilities was gone. From now on, Dumbledore didn't have any influence anymore.

He had also made sure that Dumbledore would only find out once the examiners arrived at the school, sending the application for the additional OWLs to Madam Marchbanks. It wasn't unusual for a student to do that, as the teachers at Hogwarts would only fill out the applications for the subjects that were taught here. While he expected to be called into Dumbledore's office after the exams were over, he knew that the old man couldn't get into his head anymore. He would be able to ignore anything he said to reprimand him, especially as he had no right to tell him off for studying more than the normal subjects. And he had very good reasons worked out for learning each of the subjects he had taken.

Interest in foreign languages after his summer vacation in Sweden, next to finding the language packages being sold for a price he could easily pay, then preparation for Voldemort coming after him as reason for the Duelling training, Warding to prevent unwanted visitors like Death Eaters and Healing because he landed in the hospital wing far too often to not know how to heal his common injuries. And if the old man didn't like it, his problem, not Harry's.

* * *

Madam Marchbanks looked at the lists of students from the four houses at Hogwarts. About forty students were going to take the OWLs. The one that seemed most ambitious about the number of subjects was Harry Potter. The boy wanted to take sixteen subjects. Well, she knew of course that there were ways to learn languages much faster with magical help. That OWL was easily explained. He had given French and Spanish as the two languages he would like to be tested in. Duelling and Healing, she suspected that he had studied a lot about those areas for the Triwizard Tournament last year, but she was surprised at the Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Warding applications.

According to the file Minerva McGonagall had given her, the boy took Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. There was a remark that he had asked to switch out of Divination, but it had been refused by the headmaster. Ridiculous in her opinion, especially at the beginning of the third year of a student. Well, the boy seemed to have worked around that obstacle and had done the subjects he was interested in in self-study. She was looking forward to seeing how well he would do. His parents had been highly talented after all.

As was common, the examiners from the Ministry didn't get any information about the previous grades of the students. They would only determine the grades for the OWLs by the performance that the students showed in their exams, not things that teachers commented upon. All files only held the basic data of the students that were participating in the exams. The examiners just checked the classes taken against the tests applied for to make sure nothing was overlooked. It had happened in the past that a muggleborn that wanted to simply take the test for Muggle Studies for an easy OWL hadn't been entered into the OWL for the class he had actually taken classes in.

While it was possible to add OWL subjects to your timetable, it wasn't possible to not take one in a class you took. Next to Potter, there were several other students that had added subjects. Most were additional electives, but some had extracurricular subjects too. Those students would be informed tomorrow morning when the subjects would be tested. She would have liked if more students took that kind of subjects, but the quality of the students at Hogwarts had suffered since the time she began examining students for OWLs and NEWTs. She had already been a Ministry examiner when Albus Dumbledore was a student. She didn't know why the quality and achievements varied so much, but she was by now used to it.

Extremely outstanding students appeared every few years. Be it in the academic area or the practical part, the rare few that managed to excel in both. Getting an O in your exams wasn't a sign that you were an overly powerful or smart student, it just showed that you had prepared very well for the exams. The current level of what was tested was barely two thirds of what she had been tested in, back in her youth. But the Ministry had to take sinking magic levels into consideration while setting up the exams, not to mention the accommodation of those students that had previously attended the trade school. In her opinion, closing the last trade school for financial reasons, hadn't been smart. The children that weren't as academically gifted only pulled the others down, as there wasn't any way to put the better students into an advanced program. And you noticed over the years if too many students couldn't perform certain spells anymore.

Those students that proved doing really well in the common part of the exams would then be tested for extra credit. And the examiners always quickly determined those students that had the necessary power levels and the skill to pull that kind of spell off. She would be open-minded for the coming weeks and see how the students would do this time around.

* * *

The fifth-years stood outside of the Great Hall, waiting to be let inside. Their first OWL would be taken in Charms. Many were nervous, none more than Hermione. She was whispering all kinds of things under her breath, trying to remember everything she had ever read. Harry was sure she didn't have to worry about anything. Despite her being a spy for Dumbledore, she prioritised her education over everything else. He would have told her how to really make the most of her time at Hogwarts, had she not betrayed him. Nobody but him knew about the Room of Requirement and its incredible possibilities.

On the Voldemort front, Sirius had informed him via the two-way mirror that they had been lucky and had found three horcruxes already. Thanks to Dumbledore's information about Tom Riddle, they had searched all kinds of places that had a connection to the man. Bill's expertise in curse breaking had already prevented a tragedy, when he had prevented that Dumbledore donned a ring that had been cursed. It had been found in the shack that had once been the home of Voldemort's maternal family. The second one was a locket that ironically had been found at Grimmauld Place, after they had gone to a cave with an inferi infested lake. They had torched the whole lake after getting the locket that was protected there out, to take away this possible resource for Voldemort.

It would put the ones whose bodies had been desecrated for that to rest. The locket in the cave was a fake though and Sirius recognised the handwriting and initials of his brother, which led to him questioning Kreacher about the location of the real locket. As a side effect Kreacher became much more bearable after the horcrux was destroyed. The third one was a bit tricky to get, but, as the goblins didn't care about Ministry convictions, Sirius had all the rights of the head of the Black family at Gringotts. He had gone there to get a horcrux that had been entrusted to his cousin Bellatrix out of her vault. Thanks to Arcturus Black entering a clause into the marriage contracts for his granddaughters that the other side probably didn't know about, as it was very well hidden, the head of house Black could access any vault that a member of House Black had access to.

It was allowed to use such a clause, as House Black was one of the highest-ranking houses of magical Britain. As the wizarding world had never left the Victorian Age, the ideas of nobility trumping everything was still very much part of the way of thinking. Sirius had also used his access to reduce the war fund of the Death Eaters. The main financer of Voldemort was Lucius Malfoy, who coincidentally had married Narcissa Black. And Abraxas Malfoy had been forced to swallow the toad of the clause to even get permission for his son to marry a Black daughter. The standing of the Blacks was what had allowed the Malfoys to rise greatly in the social pecking order of Great Britain.

They were a French house that had moved to England in the wake of the French revolution. While nobility in France at that time, they were targeted by the revolutionaries. And foreign houses only ranked one step above muggleborns, no matter their blood status. Lucius had only risen in standing as much as he did, as his Black in-laws had either died of old age or in the war, next to being thrown into prison. By 1990 there were no Blacks left besides Sirius. And he was at Azkaban for life. That meant, Narcissa was the only acknowledged member of the Blacks that could access the Black vaults.

While her access was limited to a certain amount of gold each year, it had helped greatly in Lucius' plans. They had thought that Draco would inherit the Black title upon his coming of age, but Sirius had made sure that Harry would get it, as soon as he was out of Azkaban and thinking clearly enough. While his relation to the Blacks was more distant, all pureblood houses were somehow related after all, thanks to being Sirius' godson, he was seen as good as Sirius' child, as long as he didn't have biological children. Not that Harry would act on it, but it was useful to know that Malfoy wouldn't get what he wanted. Not to mention that Sirius had taken back all the gold the Malfoys had taken from the Blacks and then some on top, as interest. Officially Lucius couldn't even complain about that.

The Lestrange vault had been emptied fully, as a clause about imprisonment in the marriage contract stipulated it. And the Lestranges hadn't realised that it was in the contract at all. Not to mention that they were another French house originally and had been happy that Rudolphus got permission to marry Bellatrix. In there they had found a cup that was a horcrux as well. All three valuable items had had the soul pieces transferred, thanks to Bill's expertise, and were now free again. Two were founders' artefacts that Dumbledore planned to put into a vitrine at the school once Voldemort was dealt with.

Finally, the doors opened, and the students found the Great Hall's look changed. The four house tables were gone, in their place were numerous single desks. There were parchment, ink and quills ready for their use. The quills were the infamous anti-cheating ones and thankfully they also were enchanted to hold ink for half an hour of constant writing. Otherwise this would have been ridiculous. You only had to place the quill into the ink for a minute to continue. Fred and George had been nice enough to let them know about this part. None of the students had been allowed to take anything with them for the exams, besides their wands, which had to be placed onto the desks to ensure that no student used them for spells to cheat off of others.

Each desk had a name tag on it, which meant the students needed some time to find their seat. There were ten rows of desks in four lines from the front to the back, and the placement was done in a way that there were no students from the same house in one row. Probably because it was quite sure that you wouldn't have an easy time to get help from a student from a different house. Not that they would be able to look at anybody's test with the distance between the desks. Harry was in the third row, second seat from the left. To his left was Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff and to his right Anthony Goldstein from Ravenclaw and Millicent Bullstrode from Slytherin. He sat down and made sure to put the quill into the ink well to have it ready for duty. Some others did the same.

At the front of the room was a large sign. 'Ordinary Wizarding Levels / Charms', was written on it.

Professor Flitwick seemed to be the one overseeing the test, next to the Ministry examiners. Madam Marchbanks stepped forward as soon as all students were seated.

"Welcome everybody to your first OWL. I'm Professor Marchbanks and I would like to give you some basic information about how these exams will be done. For each OWL, you have a written and a practical part, except for the purely theoretical classes, like History of Magic and Arithmancy. The written tests for the mixed classes will take three hours, from nine to twelve in the morning, and will be followed by practical tests in the afternoon. There you will be called by alphabet. The purely theoretical subjects have written tests that last four hours. You will only write with the special quills in front of you. They are charmed to prevent any kind of cheating and hold ink for half an hour, loading them takes one minute, so you better do it now, while I explain a few things," Madam Marchbanks told them and those that hadn't done so yet, put their quills into the ink wells.

"Similarly to the quills, the ink is also spelled that way. All answers are to be given on the parchment that we will be handing out after the general information part is done. There is enough space to give your answers. Write your full name, meaning including all middle names, onto the line at the top right of the first piece of parchment, it will automatically be copied to all other pages you get. You will notice a box at the front of your desks. They are for your wands, as we don't want anybody using his or hers to cheat. If you haven't learned enough by now, it won't help you anyway. And anybody that attempts to cheat is out of the exams, so you better don't even risk it.

"If you need to go to the toilet, you are to use the bathroom that was unlocked at the front of the great hall, behind the head table. We also have small bottles of water that you may take if you need something to drink. All of them just hold mineral water, no potions or anything else, which is why you were forbidden to bring any kind of food or drinks of your own. Additionally, when the examiners hand out the exam papers, they will perform a spell to check for potions or spells you have used prior to the exams. If they are the type that is considered cheating, you are out of here and fail the exam. I know that your heads of houses informed you about this, thus, it shouldn't be an issue, but just to remind you, we will check this every new exam day. During the exams, the Great Hall is locked to the outside. You can only leave it, but not re-enter it before we unlock the doors for lunch break. That means, if you leave, you end the written exams."

All students nodded at the information. Then the Ministry examiners walked along the lines and left a set of exam papers on each desk. Once that was done, they swished their wands to perform the spell, thankfully nobody was caught for cheating. It would have been embarrassing to have that happen on the first exam day. The tests lay top down, which meant the students couldn't read them. Once they were all done, Madam Marchbanks spoke up again.

"The hourglass in front of the hall shows you how much time you have left. Keep the time in mind while working. You may begin, now," She stated and turned the hourglass around, which made blue sand fall down slowly.

The students turned their papers and started working.

Harry read the first question and had to suppress a snort. 'Give the incantation and describe the wand movements to make objects fly.' That was first-year level. He quickly wrote the answer and then continued with his test.

* * *

Hermione and Ron were too busy with their OWLs to notice anything going on around them. Every minute that they didn't spend eating, sleeping or in the exams was used for last-minute revision. Harry used that fact to slip away regularly after being done with his practical exams for the day. The first week had held Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, where the practical part was done in one of the greenhouses of the school, Potions, it was a change to brew in the Great Hall instead of the dungeons, that much was sure, and Ancient Runes. The weekend was welcomed by the fifth-years, both to revise and also get some time to not do anything study-related.

Hermione hadn't even noticed that Harry had been in the Ancient Runes exams, as she was in the second row and Harry in the fifth. He had also kept his distance from her before the students entered the room. Ron was glad about the free day. The next week would also be strenuous, as the one after it. Three weeks were set for all the OWL exams. The last week also had the exams for the subjects that weren't taught at Hogwarts. Once those three weeks were done, the seventh-years would be up for the NEWTs.

Harry knew he had done very well in all of his exams so far. They had been really easy in his opinion and he had also shown several spells beyond the normal requirements for the subjects. At first, he had been surprised when the examiners from the Ministry offered him to go over a list with five additional spells for extra credit when he had surprised them with his apparent ease at casting the spells they wanted to see, but by now he understood that it was common to ask those students that showed that they were clearly very comfortable with their casting for additional demonstrations.

He was just glad that none of the Hogwarts teachers were there for the practical parts, except for Umbridge, who couldn't help herself and broke an unspoken rule for the exams by watching. It wouldn't do to have Dumbledore catch onto his true skill before he had left for the summer break. While he wouldn't be able to stop Harry going to sit his NEWTs, he didn't want to tempt Dumbledore into putting a 24/7 guard around him that kept him locked up somewhere. While he would manage to get out, it would be much easier otherwise. The results of the OWLs would only be sent to the school around the middle of August. Meaning, by that time Harry would already be gone from the country. And while Dumbledore had connections to find out about results earlier, he would have to ask for it and Harry knew that the time when the OWL results would come in was also the one when the ICW held their most important meeting of the year.

And Harry didn't doubt that by then the return of Voldemort would have been outed in some way. After all, the dark side would be ready by now to act against the Ministry. They had got a full year to prepare in secret. It could only be hoped that the hunt for the horcruxes would be finished before things got too bad. Or that Voldemort's body fell victim to two curses battling for dominance. Harry could live with both results, even if it would be best if by the time his body gave out on him, the horcruxes were dealt with already and Voldemort would simply die. Harry had no intention to ever meet that bastard again.

And even if Dumbledore wasn't reinstated by that time, he had no reason to ask for Harry's results, as he hadn't stood out at all before the OWLs were taken. And the exams in the subjects he hadn't taken were overseen by the respective teachers of the subjects, meaning none of Dumbledore's inner circle. And the additional subjects were only done by the Ministry examiners, as there were only a few students testing for them anyway. Harry was the only Hogwarts student going for Healing, Warding and Duelling, while some others would take the languages exams, and some did Politics and Economy.

Harry just had to keep up the ruse for a while longer. And with the search for the remaining horcruxes and the problem with Umbridge, the old man should be kept too busy until then.

* * *

Harry left the Hogwarts Express for the last time. It felt good to have done all his exams and thanks to Voldemort being outed while breaking into the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry, seemingly there had been a prophecy that he wanted to get into his hands, everybody else had been too occupied with worry what would happen now, that Harry could use the Room of Requirement to his heart's content without the spies noticing anything. Hermione probably believed that Harry was off somewhere, worrying too, brooding and being a moody git. He didn't correct her assumption.

The ones he had taught had come to see him, thanking him for helping them passing their DADA exams as well as they did. While the fifth and seventh-years didn't have their results so far, they all felt good, simply because they didn't have much trouble with the questions asked in the papers and then the practical demonstrations. It had amused them all when Umbridge had to hide her fury at them excelling at the practical like they did. After all, Fudge still believed that Dumbledore was after his job and raising his private army at Hogwarts.

He had considered telling somebody about the Room of Requirement, but, in the end, he hadn't done so, as he didn't want to play this card before he was irrevocably away from Great Britain. Once he had managed to get away, he would send a letter to Neville to inform him about the room and its properties, if the war still raged. The room would be great to allow the opposition of Voldemort to hide and prepare unnoticed. And Neville had done very well in the DADA tutoring lessons with Harry. Especially after the Azkaban break-out.

One thing that had surprised Harry was when he had gone to explore the hidden treasures of the Room of Requirement. He had come across a huge room with thousands of things. Among them, he found the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. A quick check confirmed that it was a horcrux like the diary had been. Bill had insisted that Harry learned that spell, after all, with his luck it wasn't improbable that he would come across another one. Harry had put the horcrux into a bag and sent it to Bill directly. Dumbledore would have asked too many questions where he had found it, which he knew Bill and Sirius wouldn't do. He just wrote he had found the diadem while exploring some places at Hogwarts and that the spell Bill had taught him had come up positive.

Next to the diadem, he had found many valuable things, which he had taken for himself. After all, these things hadn't been missed for ages, meaning finder's keeper's. His secret compartment in his trunk, which he had bought the summer before his third year in Knockturn Alley while wearing a glamour, was filled to the brink with valuable magical artefacts and old books. He planned to make copies of the books and send them to the bookstore in Espen Alley. He was fully for screwing the purebloods that would want to keep that knowledge to themselves. And Harry could relate to the muggleborns that had found ways around the oppression and despicable treatment they got from the ones in power. Harry fully planned to make a trip to Espen Alley to have the Runes expert examine the things he had found. Probably he would be able to replicate them and be giddy about the challenge.

As long as Harry got to keep his ones, and perhaps get a little money for supplying the original device, he would happily allow the man to replicate the production processes to make more profit. After all, Harry had got his pensieve thanks to that man's efforts. And while at Espen Alley, he would also stock up on language courses to work on while away.

* * *

Madam Marchbanks was shocked. There was no other word for it. Never in her by now over a century old career as an educator had she seen results like these. Oh, she had seen powerful and skilled students excel in their specialties, but never somebody that managed to get results like these in all subjects. Even the ones where it was known that the teachers were horrible and had animosities with the student's family. But Harry Potter had just done that. Sixteen OWLs he had applied for. Sixteen OWLs he had aced. Outstanding all over the board with distinction in all subjects. Even History of Magic.

She had tested Albus Dumbledore, but even he, who had got twelve OWLs, thanks to self-study of languages, in both human and magical creatures languages, which replaced the OWL subjects Divination and Care of Magical Creatures for him, hadn't managed to get all Outstanding grades. Albus got Exceeds Expectations in Arithmancy and Astronomy and an Acceptable in Herbology. Albus would be the first to admit that he had no talent for plants. He knew all the theory but didn't do that well in the practical. Tom Riddle, another exemplary student, who had then suddenly vanished from the wizarding world when he was in his early twenties, had got ten OWLs, nine Outstanding and one Exceeds Expectations in Care of Magical Creatures.

Sixteen Outstanding with distinction. She was still digesting that shock when a snowy owl flew through her home's window. She took the letter automatically while the owl took off again. She opened it and read through it quickly. Well, after the results she had just seen, results that Potter would also have got today, she wasn't the least surprised at his request. She had got the full list of results earlier this afternoon, as it had only been compiled after the results were sent to the students, like every time. While taking the NEWTs early was unusual, he would think himself not challenged enough at Hogwarts and requesting sitting the NEWTs at the earliest convenience at the Ministry was only logical.

She had known about the law that allowed any student that had passed his OWLs to request sitting the NEWTs in secret at the Ministry. It hadn't been used in ages, but there hadn't really been a reason for it. Madam Marchbanks believed Dumbledore when he said that You-Know-Who was back. Fudge was a fool to waste time for preparing for the inevitable war that would come once the enemy was ready to show his hand. And thanks to his stubborn refusal to accept even the possibility, they had already lost a year against the dark side. She had lived through the Grindelwald and Voldemort wars. She knew what dark wizards could and would do to their victims. Harry Potter now requesting that his taking the NEWTs early was kept secret until he was finished with them was only logical.

She looked over the list of subjects he wanted to take, and he had only taken Divination from the list of his previous subjects. Not surprising when he hadn't wanted to take the subjects after the first week. Even if he had done extremely well in his exams. Well, she would send the reply tomorrow morning and arrange for the NEWTs to be set up in her department's testing room three days later. She would have the home-schooled NEWT students then as well. And except for the additional subjects, everything else was already prepared. The NEWT exams for the home-schooled students were always the first thing they held after the grading of the OWL and NEWT exams from Hogwarts was finished.

NEWTs were always done first, then the OWLs. After all, the seventh-years needed to know if they had passed their classes to apply for jobs or finalise getting the job they had already got tentative agreement for with the employers. Most students from wizarding families went to job interviews and tests during the Easter break and had pre-traineeship contracts set up before they had their NEWTs. Passing the classes they took was of course mandatory for the contracts to become active. But it saved the employers a lot of time in getting the trainees and apprentices that they wanted, and they could directly start once the students graduated.


	7. and then NEWTs and More

**Here is the longest chapter of this story. Enjoy.**

* * *

… **and then NEWTs and More**

Harry appeared at the Ministry of Magic at half past seven in the morning of the twelfth of July. He had been happy that he had easily go the confirmation letter from Madam Marchbanks that told him about the date of the NEWT exams. Her letter also informed him that there would be more students, the home-schooled ones in fact, that would be taking the exams as well. He didn't really care, but it made blending in much easier for him. Just a simple glamour on his features and nobody looked twice at him. The letter included instructions how to find the DME inside the Ministry building and Harry followed those instructions to the letter.

First, he checked in his wand at the security desk, the wizard manning it was not yet quite awake. It was probably a good thing, as he didn't want somebody that hadn't sworn the oath to keep his actions secret to be informed. This way he was just some data about his wand, which nobody would care about, as long as nothing bad happened at the Ministry that had said wand's signature. He knew that, like with the OWLs at Hogwarts, he wasn't permitted to bring any kind of drinks, but, in this case, it also included food. It would be sent down by the Ministry's cafeteria without additional charge to the students.

He easily found his way to the DME and checked in with Professor Tofty, who had the list of students that would be tested for the next two weeks. Contrary to Hogwarts, they used the Saturdays as well. Home-schooled OWL students would be taking their tests during the two weeks following the NEWT exams. Harry knew that attempting to take fifteen NEWTs would be seen as overachieving, normal students had seven NEWTs when they took many subjects. He just didn't care and wanted to make it absolutely clear that he didn't need further education at Hogwarts. Sixteen OWLs and fifteen NEWTs would shut Dumbledore up perfectly, as well as the idiotic Minister.

Harry found a seat in the room and counted about thirty other students. He was honestly surprised. This was Fred and George's year after all, a war year for births of children. At Hogwarts, the class had only counted about thirty students in all four houses and normally, the number of students at Hogwarts was way larger than those being home-schooled. During the war, well, parents might have refused to let their children attend the school, even if the myth of Dumbledore being the only one that Voldemort had ever feared lessened that factor, but these young adults would have started years after the end of the war.

And they didn't look as if they suffered poverty. A few might have left Hogwarts after the OWLs and done studies at home to not burden their families with paying for the NEWT level classes, as only education up until OWL level was mandatory at Hogwarts, after the trade schools had vanished, but the number was too large for that. Then Harry heard two of the other students talk in the seats behind him.

"I'm so glad my parents got me private tutors. According to rumours, Hogwarts has fallen far since their time there," A boy said.

"Though the thing about Professor Dumbledore going senile by claiming that You-Know-Who was back has been proven wrong, as there were witnesses that saw him at the Ministry itself. I still can't believe it. I honestly thought that the Prophet reported the truth about Potter lying and Professor Dumbledore being stupid to believe him. Seems as if the Minister was the stupid one to not at least investigate the claims," A girl replied.

"That fact still doesn't change that home-schooled students regularly get better grades than the ones from Hogwarts. And the employment of teachers is up to Professor Dumbledore," The boy countered.

"True. Potions, History and DADA are regularly a gamble for you to learn anything. My cousin went to Hogwarts and complained a lot about that. The other teachers are fairly competent, but he told me that the speed of learning wasn't that fast, simply because the slower students hold the rest of the classes back. But that's what you get when you throw the smart students with the ones that would be better off at trade schools. My Aunt taught me about the previous education model in History classes. I think they should bring the old system back. Then the elite could study at Hogwarts like it was meant to be and the stupid students could go up until OWLs at a slower speed," The girl agreed with that part.

"I agree. It was so much better to be able to learn at my own speed, which allowed me to take more subjects than normal. I mean, how many of those Hogwarts students would be able to say they got thirteen OWLs and are then continuing ten of those subjects at NEWT level?" The boy laughed arrogantly.

"Very few. There were cases of twelve OWLs. The junior assistant of the Minister was one of those, I heard. Probably why he was chosen for the job. But the students there really don't get enough support to achieve more than being above average. Well, with only one teacher per subject and having to teach seven years of students, next to grading all those essays, it is to be expected. My father ensured that I was taught by the curriculum before the trade schools were closed and the students all sent to Hogwarts. I'm going to take nine NEWT subjects this year and I plan to add three more next year. Simply because my tutor for Healing, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy fell sick for half a year and we asked the Ministry for permission to push those three NEWTs back until I could make up the material with him that I missed," The girl informed him.

"Smart and understandable. That way it would be possible to concentrate on the nine subjects you want to take now and then do intensive studies for the other three afterwards, when you don't have to invest time for the others anymore. Are you taking any other subjects outside the general Hogwarts list for the NEWTs?" The boy asked.

"Languages. I have the Hogwarts list except that waste of time Divination and I don't see much sense in taking Muggle Studies. The most challenging part in my studies was getting practical experience with magical creatures, but my tutor had connections with the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures and could arrange that I got to visit some places that work with creatures like hippogriffs, salamanders and unicorns. Others like bowtruckles and knarls he could bring to my parents' house, as they were small enough to transport easily," She explained.

"Makes sense and it again proves how much better certain families are," The boy stated before being silent, as Professor Marchbanks appeared in front of the group.

Harry also turned his attention to the front of the room. He would think more about what he had heard later, after he had written his NEWTs.

"Welcome to your NEWT exams. All of you have applied to take the exams here at the Ministry. Some of you know how we will do this, as they also sat the OWL exams here, but others took them at Hogwarts and will need the information. During the NEWTs, there will be a ward around this room that prevents that anybody can address another by name. You can't even introduce yourselves. This is an ancient protection, set up at a time when the heirs of rivalling families could be sitting in the same room taking their exams. This place is fully neutral, and nobody will find out who is sitting the NEWTs until after the results have been determined.

"Food and drinks will only be provided by the Ministry, simply to make sure that no cheating via potions can take place. The quills are also enchanted to detect any potions that were ingested beforehand and we will send the student in question away for the day, which means he will fail that NEWT. Normally you should already know that, but some people are stupid and don't think it means them that no cheating is tolerated. The DME is one of the absolutely neutral departments of the Ministry of Magic and the examiners have to swear oaths to not favour any student and to fairly grade all exams.

"Contrary to the OWLs, during the NEWTs you will have five hours for the written tests in the mornings. They will always start at eight and end at one, after which you will be allowed to take lunch in the neighbouring room, where food will be provided in buffet form. I advise you to eat properly, no matter how nervous you might be, as you will need the energy for the practical tests in the afternoon. These exams are called nastily exhausting for a very good reason. They will challenge you fully in both theory and practical parts of the subjects you chose to take. You will get one bottle with water to use during the written exams and the toilet is through the door to the right of the room.

"Those that are finished with the written tests early," Here her eyes rested on Harry, which didn't surprise him in the least, as he had breezed through all of his written tests at Hogwarts much faster than all the other students and had always had an extra hour for himself, "may go into the neighbouring room and start eating. You are free to walk around this corridor, but once you leave the room, you can't come back."

The students nodded, understanding that part.

"You all got a number with the letters informing you about the time of the exams. We will call upon you by this number when it is your turn in the practical exams. This way, your identity will still be kept private. Your time will begin once I turn the hourglass on this table around," She told them and then the examiners went around and left a much larger package of parchment on the tables for the students to work through.

Today would be Herbology, followed by Transfiguration tomorrow. Well, the order didn't interest Harry. He only wanted to get this done, shock the wizarding world and disappear. Once the parchment packages were on each table, Madam Marchbanks went and turned the hourglass around. The students turned their first page and Harry began reading what would be asked for first. They wanted the method to safely harvest bobotuber pus, then the magical traits of the pus and they had to identify and label the parts on a drawing of the plant. He started with the drawing and then described what his class had learned in his fourth year.

The further he got into the test, the more advanced the plants that were covered became. No plant from the first three years of schooling at Hogwarts was part of this test. It made sense, as those would be covered by the OWLs. And the plants from fourth and fifth year were asked about in much more detail than the OWLs had demanded. Well, it would be disappointing otherwise. He worked thoroughly, but still managed to quickly go through the questions. He didn't really notice anything around him, but the examiners were quite shocked how easily he did the work.

* * *

The examiners were behind a one-way silencing ward. The students couldn't hear what they were saying, but they could hear if the students said anything.

"I didn't expect that kind of ease from Potter," Professor Tofty commented.

"Neither did I," Professor Hobbs agreed, "But it explains why he requested the earlier testing for his NEWTs. He must have been quite bored at Hogwarts, if he is that much ahead of his classmates."

"Yes. Though I wonder why we never heard anything about this before. I mean, he is famous already and you know how much Skeeter snooped around at Hogwarts last year," Madam Marchbanks reminded them.

"It is strange, but it's not our job to investigate anything about the previous performance of Hogwarts students. In fact, we are intentionally kept out of the loop to fairly grade all students during their tests," Tofty stated.

The others nodded and continued watching.

"What do you think he will do after passing his NEWTs?" Hobbs asked.

"I think he will go on vacation for a while and then apply with a master of a subject he favours. It would make sense that he continues his education on a much higher level, simply because most employers would want older applicants for jobs. Even if after passing his NEWTs he will be emancipated," Marchbanks commented.

"Could be. I doubt he would apply at the Ministry, not with how Fudge messed up with the boy," Tofty stated.

"No, he would want to be as far away from Fudge and his lackey Umbridge as possible. Though she might continue being absent most of the time, as she officially hasn't been fired at Hogwarts yet," Hobbs pondered, "Though it might be that she can't do that, as there were whispers from Fudge's office that Umbridge had been cursed and nobody could lift it. Something about her mental capabilities, but I don't know much. It would depend if St. Mungo's can heal her before the new year starts."

"Dumbledore won't keep her there, now that he got some of his breathing room back. And honestly, that woman is no teacher at all. In fact, the reason why most of the OWL students at Hogwarts managed to pass their exams in DADA this year is because Potter taught them," Marchbanks snorted.

"What? How do you know?" Hobbs asked.

"The line where the students subconsciously have to fill in the name of the teacher that taught their class the skills shown in the OWLs while they were studying at Hogwarts. Logically, there were more names for DADA than other subjects, as the teachers changed each year. We always have five slots for the names. Potter interestingly had different names than most others. First year he wrote 'One quarter Lord Voldemort possessing Professor Quirrell and three quarters self-study. Second year he only wrote self-study, third year was actually Remus Lupin, the supposed teacher for the year, fourth year was Barty Crouch junior impersonating Alastor Moody and fifth year was again self-study," Marchbanks listed.

"What? I thought Crouch junior was dead and how the hell did Dumbledore not notice that You-Know-Who was at the castle, possessing one of his teachers?" Tofty exclaimed horrified.

"No idea, but I intend to ask him when I see him next," Marchbanks replied, "The other students actually wrote nobody for second year in many cases, which makes one wonder if there was more to Gilderoy Lockhart losing his memories than a tragic accident. For fifth year about three quarters of the students wrote Harry Potter. Same for the NEWT students with their seventh year. And those were the ones that got the best grades, without exception. Some Slytherins wrote Severus Snape as their teacher. Clearly Umbridge didn't manage to make the students acknowledge her as a teacher. For other subjects, it is always the teacher for it, except for a majority of those that pass History claiming self-studies."

"Not surprising, as until this year, Albus was refused the funds to replace Binns over and over again. A travesty if you ask me," Hobbs grumbled, "He should have been replaced when he died and still went to teach. I can understand that during the war Dumbledore was glad to not have to search for a replacement teacher, but afterwards he tried and with the budget as it is, it made sense to keep a teacher that didn't draw a salary anymore, even if the teaching quality was bad."

"Too true. I'm looking forward to seeing what Mr Potter will show us this time during the practical parts. I was seriously impressed by how he performed his spells in the OWLs," Tofty commented.

The others agreed and returned to watching the students work.

* * *

Dumbledore watched how the meeting of the Order progressed. Ever since Voldemort had been outed while attempting to steal the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, things had been hectic. There had been attacks on a bridge, the dementors had betrayed the Ministry and had joined the dark side and an attack with probable giant involvement in the west county had devastated a large area. It was a horrible mess. The Order members that worked at the Ministry had helped in keeping a close eye on what was spoken about during lunch breaks.

Basically, it was a foregone conclusion that the vote of no confidence would be called for during the Wizengamot meeting tomorrow. Nothing else would make sense and then he would also be free of ideas of sending a replacement high inquisitor to Hogwarts. It was a good thing that Umbridge never managed to win too much power in the one year she had been there. Not to mention that she had to go to St. Mungo's for some mental problems. He didn't have the results of the OWLs yet, but right now that was secondary anyway. He had an arrangement with Griselda Marchbanks to get the results by the end of July, even if Minerva only got them in the middle of August, to prepare the timetables for the sixth years. That would leave him enough time to find a replacement DADA teacher.

Because he wouldn't let Umbridge come back. He knew that she hadn't taught anything that related to the exams in her classes. While he would let that stand for one year, especially when Fudge was backing her with the power of his office, this situation would soon be remedied. Everybody knew that he had been right, as always, about his warnings of Voldemort being back. There was a lot of grovelling to get back into his good books. Oh, he would use this turn in opinions. Nothing worked as well to silence critics than being proven right, even on the most unlikely things. And Voldemort still didn't have the prophecy, as one unspeakable that had been working late had not only rang the alarm about intruders in the department, he had also blasted the prophecy orb apart.

Voldemort had killed him, but the man had prevented a catastrophe. It was important that Voldemort didn't know the exact wording of the prophecy. The more he guessed what the second part said, the less clearly he could plan and would be wary to directly attack Harry. Especially as that didn't work out well at the graveyard.

Concerning Harry, Dumbledore hadn't been happy that he hadn't returned to the Dursleys, but even he couldn't convince the other members of the Order to force the issue, not when Dudley Dursley had been killed by a dementor's kiss. Sure, the muggles believed it was drug abuse, but the wizards knew better. Kingsley had reported that they couldn't determine if it had been Voldemort or somebody at the Ministry that sent the dementors, but the current assumption was that Voldemort had one of his spies at the Ministry do it. It would be his style.

A good thing about that was that Amelia Bones, who had listened to Dumbledore about moving to a secret retreat for security reasons, avoiding an attack on Bones Manor by that, which would have got her killed for sure, was now using a fine-toothed comb to go over all the Ministry personnel. Everybody had to prove that they didn't have a dark mark on their arms and sign a magical contract to not betray the Ministry to Voldemort. As head of the DMLE she had that power and she had been in that position for long enough to have the influence to get things done.

And after the attack, she knew that there were moles in her department and she would find them all. Therefore, an important resource for Voldemort would soon be gone.

On the horcrux front, they were quite certain that they had nearly all horcruxes that Voldemort had made. The ring, the locket, the diary, the diadem that Harry had found somewhere at Hogwarts and had sent to Bill and Sirius to get cleaned of the taint and the cup from the Lestrange vault. All were now freed from Voldemort's soul pieces. And the leech in Harry's scar was also gone. To think that Voldemort had made five horcruxes, possibly six, because Dumbledore was suspicious of how much control he had over his snake Nagini. The problem was, they couldn't be totally sure that there weren't more of them. And he only knew one person that might know the true number, but he was proving hard to track down.

Horace Slughorn had been Tom Riddle's head of house while he was a student at Hogwarts. He had also supported Tom as part of his Slug Club. Dumbledore planned to convince Horace to come out of retirement with the enticement of Harry being at Hogwarts, as Lily Potter nee Evans had been an all-time favourite of Horace, next to the castle of course being much safer than any hideout Horace could come up with.

He had been informed by Sirius that Harry had decided to go on vacation for three weeks from the day after the Hogwarts Express had returned on. He was abroad again, wanting to relax after having had to study as hard as he did for the OWL exams. Sirius mentioned that Harry had written to him that he would like to attend a Quidditch camp sometime this summer, which was something Dumbledore didn't have as much trouble with than another muggle camp. And while playing Quidditch, the boy was safely away from any kind of information that Dumbledore wanted to restrict for a while.

He would have preferred to have him safely stored away somewhere, but him being out of the country would suffice for now, as Voldemort wouldn't know where Harry went either. He hadn't even told his best friends the location. Supposedly because nobody knowing would also prevent them giving the information up under veritaserum, should they be captured. They hadn't liked it, but they had accepted it, especially as Harry had been on the receiving end of claims of information security too often to give him grief over doing the same. And he had a way of contacting Sirius, even if Sirius wouldn't tell which one, as he didn't trust Severus at all, which he, for now, would have to be content about. And Sirius had, rightly, pointed out that he would have told Severus, which would destroy the purpose of Harry having an undetectable way to contact him, if the spy in the enemy camp was privy to that information.

The Order was now busy with setting up more safe houses, even if Sirius had already achieved a lot during the year they had the Order working behind the scenes, with twenty safe retreats of different sizes being established and hidden away behind all kinds of wards, from the fidelius to some Black wards, training more recruits and Severus was trying to see if he could find a way to kill Nagini without dying himself. Right now, Voldemort had no idea how much his enemies had already achieved in getting him killed. And Severus had confirmed Bill's words, his body was failing him more and more.

* * *

Harry looked at his packed trunk. He had packed everything he owned into it. Well, except the big things that he kept at his vault at Gringotts and properties. He had two houses, which were rented out, bringing in a steady profit. One had once been his maternal grandparents' house and one a house in Ireland, which had belonged to his great uncle, which his father had inherited, as his great uncle didn't have children of his own. He had been surprised to find out about them, but until he was eighteen, he couldn't really do anything about the muggle style house anyway. The money went to an account, one which Aunt Petunia never knew about. Thankfully, Harry had to say, as she and Uncle Vernon wouldn't have hesitated to take all that money away for themselves.

Harry had planned out what he wanted to do for the next months. First, he would travel around a bit. He wanted to see more of the world and take a well-deserved break from all of his studies. In that part, he had been truthful with Sirius. He also planned to go to a Quidditch camp, it just wasn't planned at the beginning of the summer break. His last NEWT exams had ended just two hours ago, and he would need to be away before Madam Marchbanks could talk to Dumbledore. After all, the oath to not say anything only held while the NEWTs were sat. She could tell the old manipulator that he had been there now and had performed exceptionally well.

And Harry didn't want controls at the borders, with the Order searching for him. No, he wanted his freedom. He would call Sirius on his mirror in a week to tell him his reasons and that he would keep in contact via the mirror. That much he owed his godfather. And if Dumbledore tried to protest, he didn't owe the old man anything. He had already bought his tickets for the ferry over to Calais. Thanks to also working on becoming an animagus ever since his third year, when Professor McGonagall demonstrated the ability to his class, he could easily get to Dover.

Being a raven animagus was so nice. While he could have left the country that way, he wanted to let the Order think that he was simply relying on muggle transport. This way, they wouldn't even start thinking about him possibly being an animagus. And he would only register with the ICW on their list, which wasn't a matter of public information, if you asked for it. It cost two galleons more while registering, but it was worth it. And the ICW list sufficed for the national laws, if they demanded that an animagus registered. He wouldn't be punished for not registering, as the law didn't state it had to be in your home country.

Hedwig had instructions to come find him once he had reached France. He couldn't take her with him on the ship, but the distance was easily crossed while flying over the sea. While they were in France, they would mix their travels in flying and taking muggle transport. For the beginning, Harry would stick to muggle transport, as the Order would definitely search for him and Kingsley was good enough in doing investigations in the muggle world to find out which ship he took and from there look into the security tapes of the train stations and airports.

Harry would give the Order what they were looking for. At least for the first few days. He would appear here and there on tape to leave a false trail. One that would make them believe that his destination was Spain. He didn't plan to go there right now. He wanted to go to Germany, from where he would take a plane towards his first real destination. Frankfurt am Main was the international airport of Germany and planes took off to all parts of the world. He would also go to Berlin and visit the local ICW representation to get his registration for his animagus form done. Even if somebody tracked him to Berlin, they wouldn't track him to Frankfurt, as he wouldn't travel there by any official means, he would use his raven form. If they suspected he would take a plane, they would first check the airport of Berlin. The Order wouldn't find out which plane he took while they were searching Spain. And once they did, it would be too late to stop him anymore. Once he would be out of Europe, Dumbledore's influence was negligible.

* * *

Dumbledore didn't find out about Harry's actions until three weeks after the last NEWT exam had been sat. He had been away at the ICW conference, trying to gain support for their fight against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. The main problem was that the other European countries didn't want to help. Fudge and Crouch had destroyed many diplomatic connections that they would have needed right now and rebuilding those took a lot of time. He had also travelled around a bit, trying to convince some of his political acquaintances to see what they could do to help, even if the British Ministry of Magic had been led by idiots for years. It wasn't very successful.

Then there was the normal Order business and he hadn't been at the Ministry for more than the Vote of No Confidence that got Fudge fired and an investigation against him started. Amelia Bones had called for martial law and was working on cleaning the Ministry, one department after the other. So far, she was successful, according to Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks' reports. Thus, when Griselda Marchbanks crossed his path at the Ministry, he first didn't think about it too much, he just greeted her nicely.

"Griselda, good to see you. I assume you are glad that the testing period for the OWL and NEWT students is over?" Dumbledore asked.

"Certainly, Albus. It's always a lot of work, the busiest time of the year for my department," Madam Marchbanks replied, "Though I think Hogwarts will gain a lot of positive publicity very soon."

"Oh, how come? I have to admit, I'm not fully up to date on national educational matters, as I was away at the ICW meeting for a while," Dumbledore asked, wondering what this was about.

"Ah, yes, it's always scheduled at this time of the year. I didn't think about that, as I'm too busy with the numerous tests I have to oversee. Just last Saturday were the last OWL exams for the home-schooled students. We don't have their results yet, of course, that will come this week. But we have the NEWTs done, as we have learned years ago to schedule one week for grading their exams before we even get started on the OWLs. Well, I assume you didn't look over the results of the OWLs and NEWTs for Hogwarts students then," Madam Marchbanks nodded.

"No, I didn't have the time so far. And Minerva hasn't started on setting up timetables for the next school year yet, she always does that in the middle of August, when we have the final lists for the first-years and possible applications to join the NEWT classes from home-schooled students. And those come during the first week of August normally," Dumbledore confirmed.

"Well, then I will be the herald of great news. After all, a Hogwarts student managing to achieve sixteen OWLs with Outstanding with distinction is unheard of," She beamed at him.

"Sixteen? And all of them Outstanding with distinction?" Dumbledore showed his honest surprise.

"Yes, I was baffled myself. I knew of course that he wanted to take all those OWLs, as he sent in the application to take the three subjects he didn't take classes for but had done in self-study and then adding four other subjects. Languages didn't surprise me much, as we always have several students that know about the option of adding them to gain an easy additional OWL. Warding, Duelling and Healing on top of that is unheard of though," Madam Marchbanks informed him.

"Which student was it? With the trouble of Dolores being at Hogwarts and making my job harder, I didn't go over the lists which student applied for which subject, as I know that you always make very sure that everything is working as it should," Dumbledore asked.

"Mr Potter. I was astonished how good he was at using his wand and his papers were always exceptionally well done. All answers to the point with all important information in them. While we also noticed that Miss Granger gave lots of information in her answers, she hasn't mastered the skill of not citing textbooks too much yet. For the OWLs that doesn't matter that much, but for NEWTs it will hinder her. Mr Potter was far more advanced in that," She revealed.

Dumbledore had to fully use his occlumency abilities to not lose it. How had the one student he wanted to keep uninformed the most and limited to a certain level managed to get those results?

"Ah, I guess you are very surprised," Madam Marchbanks nodded.

"Yes, I wasn't aware that he was that good at school. While he by no means was a bad student the years before, he never was at the top of his year," Dumbledore explained.

"Well, probably he was bored with the material and only did the necessary things to easily pass his classes. We often notice that with geniuses. They mostly show their abilities when it counts for them," She told him.

"That could definitely be the case. I guess he will take a large number of NEWT classes then," Dumbledore pondered.

"No, he won't. He already sat his NEWTs. I got the application under the old laws the day we had sent out the OWL results. And except for Divination, he took all the subjects he took for OWLs in his NEWTs. While he didn't get all subjects with distinction this time around, he got Outstanding in all subjects again," She informed him cheerily, "Imagine it, a true genius, coming from Hogwarts. The other big schools, which have begun to look down on our results here in Great Britain, will have to eat their words for a while."

Dumbledore didn't like this at all. NEWTs meant that Harry didn't have to return to Hogwarts the coming school year. He was emancipated by proving his qualification as a fully-trained wizard.

"Did Harry say anything why he would take the NEWTs two years early and not wait until he would take them with his friends?" Dumbledore asked, hoping to get more information.

"No, he didn't give any reasons, but my personal guess is that after the return of You-Know-Who, he really knuckled down for all his subjects to not become a victim again. After all, he witnessed it. That can turn a switch in even a bored genius that only did the necessary work to get into the next school year. If he wanted to have the means to stop him before things got as out of hand as they did last time, well, it would make sense," Madam Marchbanks stated.

"That could very well be true and fits Harry's personality," Dumbledore nodded, knowing he now had to find Harry very quickly to get him back under his control, "Well, I guess the Daily Prophet will have a field day with the information."

"Certainly. This kind of results is hot news. People will take hope in knowing that the Boy-Who-Lived has shown the skill needed to face You-Know-Who again," She nodded.

"I will see what Harry plans next. My information was he went on vacation," Dumbledore hid his annoyance.

"After the amount of studying he had to do to manage this kind of results, not surprising and well-deserved. You should think about employing him in the near future for the constantly troublesome Defence position as well. Many students in their fifth and seventh year claimed him as their teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts instead of Madam Umbridge. And considering that he got very good results, well, he was certainly worth more than her. You should redirect the money meant for the Defence teacher to Mr Potter's accounts."

"Then I better get my business here done quickly and see if I can contact Harry to find out more about his plans," Dumbledore nodded, "While I wasn't aware of him teaching others in Defence, that could easily be explained by him not wanting to get onto Dolores' list of dissidents. And she wanted to catch him for something all year. It was nice talking to you, Griselda."

"Same to you, Albus," Madam Marchbanks replied and they separated.

Dumbledore went to the bathroom before he did anything else. There he silenced the place and let his anger loose. How the hell had Harry managed this? He could have understood a handful of subjects that he performed better than previously shown, but sixteen OWLs of Outstanding with distinction was absolutely unheard of. Not to mention fifteen NEWTs of Outstanding on top of that. Some of them again with distinction. And his spies hadn't noticed anything out of the norm about Harry. He had had them keep a close eye onto him. And he trusted Hermione Granger to do her job properly.

She would have reported had Harry suddenly started a study frenzy. And she had reported, which was confirmed by Ronald Weasley, that Harry had refused to lead the study group for Defence that she wanted to found. This wasn't good at all. He didn't want the boy to take independent action. But perhaps this also offered an option to get him back to Hogwarts. Offering him to at least be assistant teacher for Defence. It was doubtful if the Board of Governors would allow him to employ a sixteen years old wizard as a full teacher after all. Yes, that plan might work out very well. He left the bathroom and quickly went to see the new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, who had got the job because Amelia Bones felt that she was needed more in the DMLE.

* * *

Harry enjoyed lying on the beach. His plan had worked out perfectly. He had made everybody that might follow him believe that he was on the way to Spain. As there were lots of beautiful places that he could have chosen for his vacation, it was perfectly believable. He had gone to Paris from Calais, then boarded a train to Barcelona, though he only went with it until the next station. There he left it and looked for a place where he could transform unnoticed. An empty alley was perfect for his needs. And he had checked that there weren't any cameras, as he didn't want to break the Statute of Secrecy. His trunk had an auto-shrinking function and anything you carried on your body while transforming would reappear when you transformed back into your human form. Magic was great that way.

From there he flew to the border of Germany and took a bus that travelled from France to Germany. It was never a good idea to not pass through customs if you wanted to be safe from legal repercussions. As his passport was charmed to always pass any control, he easily entered Germany. Thanks to his studies, he knew that there were alarms that the magical ministries of other countries could activate that would detect illegal immigrants immediately. The wizard or witch in question would then be detained and brought to their Ministry of Magic.

And he wanted to prevent exactly that. By letting the muggles have the chance to control his documents while using normal transport ways, he circumvented that problem fully. And the muggles didn't know that Harry Potter was famous. He assumed that, thanks to it now being known that Voldemort was actually back, the other European countries would have their wards activated to prevent Death Eaters sneaking in and causing trouble. Once he was inside the country, past the wards, he could use his raven form to travel as he liked. He had stopped in Berlin to register, surprising the assistant that took his information, as he was just fifteen, a few days shy of his sixteenth birthday.

Now his animagus form was safe for him to use. He had spent one week in different places in Germany, simply because he couldn't get a ticket to Miami earlier, as he first had to get the needed papers for Hedwig ready. Because, as great as she was, it was too far for her to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to America. But he didn't mind. It offered him the time to wait for his results to arrive. The Ministry owl would have had trouble getting to America as well after all. As it was the summer break, many tourists were flying to America and Florida was a popular destination. But he didn't mind it. He got some sightseeing in, and there were lots of interesting places in Germany. Berlin itself had were many things worth seeing, especially after the reunion of the two parts of the country, which had been separated for over forty years.

He had got his letter with the results five days after the NEWTs had ended at the Ministry. And there hadn't been any spells like tracking charms on the letter, thus he was safe to accept it. He had been very happy about his results. Fifteen NEWTs, of them ten Outstanding with distinction. That was all he needed to show Dumbledore and Great Britain the bird. He had celebrated the results by finding a really good restaurant and enjoying one of his favourite dishes from the menu. Hedwig had got a lot of bacon, as he wanted his oldest true friend sharing his joy.

Once he had reached Miami, he had travelled to a muggle beach resort and checked into a hotel. He planned to stay here for two weeks and then he would continue his journey. Thanks to being able to use magic freely, he had simply let it appear as if he was eighteen, thus no muggle had asked questions he didn't want to answer. He got a nice room at the hotel with view onto the sea. It was incredibly. Especially as before his vacation to Sweden last year, he had never seen the sea before. Sad when you considered that he grew up on an island nation. He planned to see all of the United States, with one break for a week to attend Quidditch camp, also in America, but in an area that muggles couldn't reach. There were many impressive sights he wanted to visit, and he had the time to do what he wanted. Getting his masteries could wait for another year, until he was officially of age. No Ministry would allow an underage wizard to sit those tests. Well, he had studied more than enough for them and could pass them easily.

The reason why no underage wizard was allowed to sit the tests was that most wouldn't have the raw power needed for the advanced spells that were part of the tests. The fourth stabilising boost to a wizard's or witch's magic took place on their seventeenth birthday, the others being on the uneven birthdays starting with the eleventh, which was the reason why the schools only started teaching children active use of their magic from the age of eleven on. With the fourth and second to last boost, it was possible to let everybody take the test. It didn't mean they would manage, there was a good reason why there were few masters of any subjects. The demands, which were internationally agreed upon and controlled by the ICW, were incredibly high, but you could risk it without endangering the health and magic of the applicant for those of age.

With Harry's plans of taking several mastery tests, he fully intended to spread them out over two years. The Ministries, in cooperation with the different guilds, tested mastery candidates every six months, and all Ministries held the tests at the same time. March and September. The reason was also simple. The months May and June were always the ones where the magical schools held their OWL and NEWT exams, or whatever the respective country called their equivalent. July and August were when the home-schooled students and those that wanted to sit additional exams that didn't fit into the testing period at their school, or repeat takers, would have them at the Ministries.

September was the first month where there were free spots in the DME's schedules and March was simply six months away from that. Harry would take his first two tests, in Defence Against the Dark Arts and Duelling, which he had decided after getting his NEWT Outstanding with distinction in the subject, in September after his seventeenth birthday. The exams in March of the following year would be for Charms and History of Magic and last would be Transfiguration and Ancient Runes the following September. You only had to apply for the exams one month in advance, which would be easy.

And Harry had already found a master of Defence and Duelling that had promised to sponsor his entry in the exams. And technically, you only needed a master, any master would do, to support your entry. It didn't need to be for the subject you wanted to take. And once you had passed one mastery exam, you could even do it yourself. Probably nobody had thought to prevent it, as masters were rare enough as it was, and multiple ones even more so. Something Harry would use to let some muggleborns take their mastery tests without being sabotaged by pureblood supremacists.

Between the exams, Harry planned to travel more and perhaps looking for a place to settle down. It would depend on his liking of a place he travelled through. One thing he had done as soon as he had arrived in the US and had got through the magical customs, they were much better at spotting those magicals entering their country than the European countries were, and that was equipping Hedwig with a runic engraved ring for her foot that kept the temperature around her to a pleasant level for her. Miami and other places in the States were very warm and he didn't want his companion to suffer from it.

* * *

Back in Great Britain, Sirius was faced with an annoyed Albus Dumbledore.

"What do you mean, you don't know where Harry went?" Dumbledore asked.

"Exactly what I said, Albus," Sirius replied, "While Harry told me that he would be going on vacation abroad again this summer, he didn't tell me which country."

"But that's too dangerous! If any of the Death Eaters find him, they will kill him!" Dumbledore protested.

"I highly doubt it. They don't know where he is after all and all other European countries have activated their wards to detect illegal immigrants and trespassers to their borders. I know from Kingsley that anybody with the dark mark or a criminal record is keyed into triggering the alarm wards. Contrary to Great Britain, the other countries learned from both the Grindelwald and Voldemort wars. The idea behind it is even very simple. They asked for the magical signatures of everybody that was ever suspected of being a Death Eater or Voldemort sympathiser from our Ministry of Magic. Crouch, being angry that he had to let too many dark wizards go, thanks to bribery and insufficient evidence without the permission to use veritaserum, happily complied and sent them the information they asked for.

"There are reasons why people like Malfoy don't go on vacation abroad. They can't get into the countries without being detected by the wards and have to give a thorough statement why they were visiting the country, what their exact travel plans were, how long they planned to stay and so on. Malfoy is too annoyed at the treatment to leave Great Britain much. It might have been petty revenge, but nobody ever said Barty Crouch was above acting like that. In fact, his actions prevented that the Death Eaters could recruit much on the continent. Not that it stopped them from doing it here in Great Britain, once dust had settled. I know that Igor Karkaroff was watched closely when he took up a spot as a teacher at Durmstrang. He was never allowed to move freely, as he was known as a Death Eater and had only got off for giving up other Death Eaters to the Ministry.

"The reason he was allowed to become headmaster was that he swore an oath to never attempt recruiting his students for any kind of dark movement and to not glorify his time as a criminal. He was put into a purely administrative position, where he could be controlled properly. While the Ministries of the countries that send students to Durmstrang were less strict about their idea of teaching the dark arts to students, they have limits of what they allow. With severe punishment from breaking his oaths over his head, he was allowed to pass on his knowledge, but not his ideology," Sirius commented.

"I doubt those wards could stop a well-planned attack," Dumbledore tried to reason, "And how could Macnair get to the giants if that was true?"

"You know as well as I do that the giants were banished to mountains in Russia after the Grindelwald war and Russia's Ministry of Magic is more defunct than ours. Even at the height of the war ours worked better. The Russians don't have alarms for this type of wards, simply because they don't have anything worthwhile in the country that a dark wizard would want. No special magically powerful places, no exceptionally powerful wizards. The Tsars did a lot of damage to their population as well, which you should know.

"And who would inform the Death Eaters where they have to attack? Face it, as long as Harry doesn't do anything that attracts attention from the public, he won't stand out, especially if he, which I assume he is doing, travels muggle style. Harry knows how to move in the muggle world perfectly. I'm not going to ruin his well-deserved vacation," Sirius stated, "Really, leave him alone during the summer break. September will come soon enough."

"I guess he didn't tell you yet," Dumbledore saw an opening.

"What should he have told me?" Sirius asked.

"I only got the news today from Griselda Marchbanks when I was at the Ministry to meet with Rufus about the strategy against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Harry not only aced sixteen OWLs, all Outstanding with distinction I might add, he also applied to sit his NEWTs two years early and got fifteen Outstanding with several distinctions among them. He is done with school. Actually, I had thought about employing him to teach Defence, at least as an assistant teacher, as the majority of the OWL and NEWT students at Hogwarts named him as their Defence teacher for the year," Dumbledore revealed. He knew accusing Harry of anything wouldn't go over well with Sirius.

"Oh damn, way to go, pup," Sirius cackled, "Sixteen OWLs and fifteen NEWTs. That has to be a record. But he is Lily's son, so him doing it in secret isn't too surprising. And wanting to get away after all the studying he has to have done is only understandable."

Dumbledore was surprised by that reaction. He would have thought that Sirius would take Harry not telling him before worse.

"What do you mean by expecting that from Lily's son?" He asked instead.

"I guess you never found out. Lily had fourteen OWLs and twelve NEWTs," Sirius snickered.

"What? But she only took ten subjects up to OWL level and then took seven of them on NEWT level at Hogwarts," Dumbledore exclaimed, baffled.

"Lily did Muggle Studies without any need of studying, she declared the exams way too easy for any muggleborn, and she didn't consider Divination as worth of her time, too woolly in her opinion. She read through the book one of her classmates had to know what it was about but didn't bother more about it. The other three subjects she took were Healing, Languages and Duelling. Seems as if her grandmother was a teacher for French and Spanish and had taught her and her sister from the time they were little girls, claiming that a well-rounded young lady needed to know foreign languages. Healing and Duelling she studied on her own, because the war was raging all around," Sirius revealed, "James and I also did the Languages and Duelling OWLs on top of our other subjects."

"I never knew that," Dumbledore frowned.

"Hogwarts only gets the lists of the subjects that are taught there, so you wouldn't wonder about it. And many muggleborns take Muggle Studies without ever sitting the classes. That wouldn't be surprising to you," Sirius shrugged.

"I guess it wouldn't. Still, I need to contact Harry soon," Dumbledore brought them back on track.

"If he contacts me, I will pass it on, but I won't force him. Too many stupid mistakes were made with him and I won't add more onto my own list. I also doubt that he wants to teach next year, even if I could see him doing it sometime in the future. He is sixteen now, Albus. He is a teenager that was never allowed anything growing up. I guess he wants to get certain urges out of his system, now that he's free of any kind of obligations. The best thing I can do now is supporting him when he needs it and otherwise be a sounding board. He isn't a child that needs to be watched over around the clock," Sirius firmly declared.

Dumbledore realised that he wouldn't have much success with convincing Sirius, so he took what he could get.

"I'm not happy about that idea, but I guess I can't do much about it right now. Just pass on the request to meet with me about a possible job at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said.

"I will," Sirius promised.

He hadn't told anybody that he had given Harry the two-way mirror. He had thought about it, but in the end, he didn't want somebody like Snape finding out about it and confiscating the mirror from Harry, just to be petty. It was meant to be a safe communication method in case Harry needed him. He would call him once he was alone and then congratulate him to the prank he had played on Dumbledore and the Ministry. And honestly, he didn't mind his godson being out of the country with the war going into a nasty phase. Sirius knew how feeling trapped ate on you.

* * *

Harry was watching the telly when his mirror went off.

"Seems that Dumbledore contacted Sirius about me being gone. Took him longer than I thought it would," Harry mumbled and took the mirror from the table it currently lay on. He turned the telly on silent and answered the call.

"Sirius Black," Harry stated, and the face of his godfather appeared.

"Hey, pup," Sirius greeted cheerily, which was a good sign.

"Hi, Sirius," Harry replied smiling, "What's up?"

"Well, I wanted to congratulate you!" Sirius declared proudly, "Not only for acing all your tests, but also pulling a fantastic prank on Dumbledore. He's in a real snit, even if he tries to not show it, about you simply vanishing like you did, and especially as you won't be a student at his school from next year on."

"I thought he wouldn't like it, which is why I didn't mention applying for my NEWTs early on. I'm glad you are okay with it," Harry admitted.

"I'll admit I was shocked to hear you did this well, but I understand why you felt the need to get out. The way you were treated wasn't right and I understand that more than anybody. Blood family doesn't always mean true family," Sirius stated seriously.

"Yes. And I realised that Dumbledore was at the core of all the strange and dangerous things that happened around me. I don't know what he plans, but I don't want to die, because his stupid ideas finally cost the ultimate price. Voldemort also has an unnatural interest in me and until he is gone, I won't simply give him a target in Great Britain. He can't find me while I'm away somewhere he doesn't have any kind of influence," Harry confirmed.

"You won't hear any complaints from me. Do you at least have a nice vacation so far?" Sirius asked.

"Yes. I spend a lot of time at a beach and also visit the local sights. The weather here is great and I plan on travelling around for a while to see many things I wanted to see when I was a child, but never could," Harry nodded.

"Sounds great. On my part, there is some good news. Kingsley managed to talk to Rufus Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, and he's more than open to grant me a hearing about my case, after Kingsley pointed out all the holes in the case file he got. The file was only fully released to him, the lead auror for the case, after Fudge was fired. Scrimgeour was the previous head of the auror office, so Kingsley has a good connection to him," Sirius told Harry happily.

"Congratulations, Sirius. I truly hope it works out for you. You deserve being free again," Harry exclaimed.

"Thank you. I won't ask where you are, but I would appreciate some photos once you are gone from a place. Oh, and I told the old man I would tell you that he would like you to contact him. Seems he has decided to keep control over your whereabouts, he would like you to become a teacher, at least assistant teacher for now, for Defence Against the Dark Arts. Seems Professor Marchbanks told him about three quarters of the OWL and NEWT students claiming you as their teacher for the year and they all got great results," Sirius laughed.

"He can forget that I will return so soon. I'm going to enjoy my freedom from him and his obsession to control and run my life," Harry declared, "I'm also going to sit my mastery exams once I'm of age, but please don't tell him that. I want to shock him once he finds out, after all, he always made Ron and Hermione hold me back in my studies. Stupid control-obsessed bastard."

"What do you mean, they held you back?" Sirius asked.

"I have known that the two were Dumbledore's minions for sure from second year on and I suspected it in first year already. I never acted, as the spy you know is less dangerous than the spy that keeps hidden. Dumbledore never wanted to me to excel, I don't know if it is because Voldemort was a student that excelled and which he lost control over or for some other reason, but I honestly don't care anymore. I did my own thing and studied in secret. But I had to be smart and avoid obliviations. And he would have done that, had I shown too much of my intelligence and skill in classes," Harry explained.

"The old bastard. But good work on that part, nobody suspected and when it was revealed at dinner, many couldn't believe it. Especially Ron and Ginny. Hermione is with her parents right now. Thankfully Snape was already gone, otherwise we would have had to endure a tirade of epic proportions, as Dumbledore told the Order during today's meeting about the change in situation and his plans to ask you to become a teacher at Hogwarts," Sirius informed Harry.

"I guess Mrs Weasley was fully in favour of this," Harry commented, "I won't go back to Hogwarts for at least five years, Sirius. No way will I give Dumbledore the opportunity to mess around with my life again."

"I get it, pup. By the way, if you are ready for mastery exams by the time you hit your majority, how did you manage? I mean, learning enough to get your NEWTs a year or two early, I can fully understand, as the timetables at Hogwarts aren't full enough to prevent it, even with Quidditch training thrown into the mix. And if you kept your homework brief and only to the pertinent facts, you get away with cutting the time needed for it short. But mastery level really takes intensive studies and you normally need about five years of additional practice in one subject to get there. Three if you have a photographic memory, as even that won't help with the practicing of spells," Sirius wanted to know.

"As I already got away, I can tell you. I'm going to write to Neville and a few others anyway, so that they can use the room I found to their advantage. There is a special room at Hogwarts, which the house elves call the Come-And-Go-Room or the Room of Requirement. You have to pass the spot where the door of the room appears on the seventh floor opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy three times, thinking exactly what you need from the room. I asked for a place to train more efficiently, having more time available to me, which couldn't be found by anybody else while I was in there, and the room created a time compression function. Ten minutes outside are one hour inside.

"I normally used the nights and whatever time I got during the day to go there and study, relax and research whatever caught my fancy. As I found out about the room in my first year, I had much more time available to me than anybody suspected," Harry grinned, "And, as none of my dormmates ever woke before seven in the morning at the earliest, nobody ever suspected anything, as I also started working out in the morning, supposedly to be better at Quidditch."

"That's ingenious. A true shame we never found that room. How did you find it?" Sirius asked curiously.

"The house elves told me. I asked them for a safe place to train away from the eyes of the teachers and they described the room and how it worked. I think it is a contribution to the school by Rowena Ravenclaw. The room allows you to work on any kind of subject, even ones that have long since been lost. You wouldn't believe how many old and normally lost books I got thanks to it. Not only was there a room that I would call the school's attic, where lost and hidden things appeared, it was coincidentally there that I found Ravenclaw's diadem, which was turned into a horcrux, but the room also can replicate any kind of book that has been in the school at one point in its history for at least a month. I think it was Ravenclaw's way to ensure that no knowledge was ever totally lost," Harry answered, "I got a copy spell that allowed me to create new copies of the books that the room created. You couldn't take them out of it, as they disappeared once you went through the door. As long as you had the basic materials, meaning paper, ink and hard paperback, you could copy any book you wanted. Even those from the restricted section of the library."

"Incredible. I never thought that this type of thing was possible. Copying pages out of books, sure, but not copying whole books without a lot of work. Especially as normal books have copyright charms on them," Sirius said in awe.

"The spell works around them. One great thing was that the room also gave me instructions how to create magical trunks. It helped that I could compare them with the trunk I bought before my third year. I made several for my personal use and one now holds my new library. I think, as I have all the books of the Hogwarts library plus all those old and lost books, I now have the biggest magical library in Great Britain," Harry exclaimed.

"Definitely. I better don't mention that, or you will be hunted down for that knowledge alone," Sirius commented, "Many would kill for the kinds of books you will have in your collection. Did you even manage to read them all?"

"No, there are hundreds of books that I didn't read so far. But I plan to do so over time. There are several subjects I didn't go into deeply either. Simply because the time wasn't available, even with the time compression function in play. Or because you need a proper teacher for certain things, or they will go badly wrong."

"True. Alchemy and rituals would be the first on the list to come to mind," Sirius nodded.

Harry agreed with a nod.

"So, you will travel for a while and regularly call on the mirror?" Sirius asked.

"That's the plan. I also might send some postcards once I have left a place. To make it look as if I'm just travelling for fun. Could you do me a favour and watch how Hermione reacts to the news that I totally beat her grades for the OWLs?" Harry asked.

"I guess you want the memory to watch it in a pensieve?" Sirius asked.

"Exactly. I have my own pensieve and watching it would entertain me for sure. I so wanted to show her up for a while, as her constant nagging about studying and talking down to me and Ron really got on my nerves," Harry confirmed.

"I will. Did the Room of Requirement also teach you how to make pensieves?" Sirius asked, "The knowledge was also lost over the centuries."

"I haven't found it yet, but I can look. But if you want to have your own pensieve, once you get cleared, go to Espen Alley and go to Eric's shop. He sells all kinds of things. He found one pensieve during cleaning out the home of a dead wizard, he does that for a job, and a friend of his reverse engineered the process to make them. The guy wanted to become a Runes master but couldn't find a sponsor to take the exams in any European country. Simply because he was muggleborn. But he has the same level of skill and sells his creations via Eric. They have great stuff in all the shops in Espen Alley. You should definitely look through them. I also got my copy of the _'Guide to Potions Brewing – From Beginner to Master'_ there. Only reason I understood the stupid class, as it is one of those where you normally need a proper teacher, which Snape simply isn't," Harry declared.

"That is a very rare series. Was it also part of the things found in cleared out homes?" Sirius suspected.

"Yes. The bookshop there is a led by Eric's brother-in-law. They told me that they used computers to write new versions of the books they find, sometimes copying a picture into the layout with a scanner, and then print as many copies as they want, as everything is saved on a CD," Harry replied.

"Uh, what are a computer and those other things?" Sirius asked.

"A computer is a muggle invention that was first becoming available in the eighties. Now they are common at every home. My cousin got a new one every year and I learned how to use his old one, which I managed to repair in secret," Harry explained, "They can be used to write things in typing, you can play games on them, and there are many programs for all kinds of things. Calculating, setting up presentations, learning languages and so on. Though learning languages works better with magic."

"Yes, I know. You told me about your exploits in summer before third year. Remus actually went there and bought five packages for the Order to use, plus several more workbooks, as every person that uses the material needs his or her own copy of that one for the knowledge to really stick. I had given him the money, as I wanted something to do and could explain it away as beneficial for the whole Order. Dumbledore considered it a good idea for us to prepare for the time once we could act openly and try convincing people from other countries to support us. And that works better when you can speak their language. I used them to kill time. I learned Japanese, Spanish. German and Italian over the last year. And Remus will take up your suggestion of tutoring children in languages in the muggle world, as he now has three languages he can offer, those being Spanish, German and French. He had less free time than me, as he did more work for the Order, next to his job in the muggle world. And in the future, it will be several more. How many languages did you do so far?" Sirius asked.

"Fifteen. The Room of Requirement allowed me enough time to manage that. While you don't age while in there, the time passing does count towards hours of learning things. I made sure to not do many languages at the same time but worked through one after the other to not overload my brain. Three months of time processed by my mind and I had one language down. Then I took a break of at least two weeks before I started the next one," Harry answered.

"Smart thinking. I wish I had known about that room when I was a student. Before I was sent to Azkaban, I had plans to pursue a mastery in Charms and possibly Defence. The second one mostly, because, as a Black, I knew much more about the Dark Arts and their counters than most other people. Back when I was in my twenties, should we have managed to win the war, I would have managed to find a master to take me on," Sirius sighed, "But now I'm too old and I don't have the time to do self-study to get there."

"Well, I have a solution to that," Harry commented.

"Really, which one?" Sirius asked eagerly.

"The DADA job. Once your name is cleared, ask Dumbledore for the position. He needs a new one anyway. Just make sure to create an anti-curse amulet while you are at Hogwarts. The curse was somehow entered into the wards of the school when Voldemort hid Ravenclaw's diadem there. That much I could figure out. Otherwise the curse could be easily broken. An anti-curse amulet will prevent that the curse takes hold on you and you can stay as DADA teacher for as long as you like. That way, you will already be at the school and have free access to the Room of Requirement without anybody being the wiser. Not to mention that I doubt that Voldemort will live too long, if the snake can be killed. The unicorn blood's curse will take care of it," Harry explained, "And once he dies, the curse breaks on its own."

"That isn't a bad idea at all, Harry. I could talk to Professor Flitwick for pointers in working towards a Charms mastery, as he has one, and with the room at my disposal, I could easily make the time I need to study what would come up in the mastery exams," Sirius grinned excitedly, "Normally you need to invest about twenty hours full-time study and ten practicing each week to gain a mastery within three years. But I have done some of the stuff while fighting the war. I think I would have to refresh my DADA stuff and then do the equivalent of the last year. Same for Charms. I had to be creative and have a large spell repertoire to survive the fights against the Death Eaters after all."

"And if you sneak into the school during the summer break, which still has all of August and the last week of July left over, you can make a more than decent start. Let me think, twenty-four hours a day, thirty-one days of August and eight are left of July. Take off two days for getting the classroom ready, one for the business with the Ministry and one for anything else that crops up. Thirty-five days left. Means you have fifty thousand and four hundred minutes, in time compression that turns into five thousand and forty hours, meaning two hundred and ten days.

"If you concentrate and stock up on non-perishable food and drinks, you could manage to get to the level of mastery for one subject in that time period, as you wouldn't have anything else to bother about. If you use that time for DADA, you could use the school year for Charms, as you wouldn't have as much uninterrupted time on end. While it would be strenuous, it would work. And getting the job doesn't require a mastery, after all, I doubt that besides the real Moody and perhaps Remus any of our teachers had one."

"Are you by any chance working on an Arithmancy mastery?" Sirius asked baffled about the quick calculations Harry had done in his head.

"No, I don't like maths too much, but I'm good at it. Simply because I needed it for other subjects as a reference. Working on new spells and potions is much safer while knowing Arithmancy after all," Harry shook his head.

"Your idea certainly has a lot of merit. I mean, if I subtracted ten hours per day for eating, sleeping and relaxing, I still gain fourteen hours to study and practice. And I haven't had anything to really challenge me for a long time. It will be fun. Not to mention that I can already imagine Snivellus' constipated look when I take the position that he wanted to have. It would be the perfect prank," Sirius snickered.

"As long as you manage to behave in front of the students," Harry replied.

"Ah, don't worry, if it counts, I'm a good actor. And it would be great to help preparing the students to defend themselves properly. While I can't see myself doing it forever, I would do a few years until I'm ready for whatever mastery I want to take. And the resource of the room would be extremely beneficial for that. Perhaps I might even go for Transfiguration. I did manage the animagus transformation after all, which is sometimes called proof of mastery in the subject. Even if your Dad was always much more talented in the subject than me," Sirius stated.

"Well, I can see you succeeding there. By the way, I managed my own one," Harry told Sirius smugly.

"Really? What are you?" Sirius asked eagerly.

"How good is your occlumency?" Harry asked instead.

"Mastery level. One thing my family did right by me, teaching me how to occlude my mind. Helped against the dementors, as the focus it gives you allowed me to transform even without my wand. As you saw in 1994, the rat still needed his wand to transform. Your Dad could do it without one as well, but, as I mentioned, he was a rare total Transfiguration genius. Without the occlumency, I wouldn't have managed to get the transformation down to the level I did," Sirius explained.

"Good. Because I don't want Dumbledore or Snape going through your memories and finding out how I manage a good part of my hiding in plain sight," Harry grinned, put the mirror onto a table and transformed into his raven form and cawed loudly.

"A raven? Damn, Lily won the bet," Sirius exclaimed, and Harry shifted back.

"What bet?" Harry asked curiously.

"Your Dad and I wanted to teach you how to become an animagus when you were old enough. Your Dad wanted to get you started once you turned thirteen, after the second stabilising boost of magic, but Lily absolutely forbid it and made us promise to wait until after you had sat your OWLs. Which is why I didn't offer it to you last summer. Didn't want to break my promise to your Mum. But, after you turned out to be a natural on the toy broom I bought you for your first birthday, she declared that you would be some kind of bird animagus. James of course objected and claimed you would be a stag like him. I thought you would become some kind of cat, as you were always incredibly curious and got into the strangest places that nobody could explain," Sirius told him.

Harry smiled at the story. He loved hearing anything about his parents and while he was a baby.

"What did you bet?"

"Well, each of us put twenty galleons into a pot. That pot would be stored at Gringotts until you managed to find your animagus form. Guess, as Lily can't take her rightful winnings, it's yours now, as her son," Sirius pondered.

"Let's keep it there until I come back to England. It's not as if I'm in need of money right now," Harry replied.

"Oh, another interesting story?" Sirius asked eagerly.

Harry nodded and told him the story of his exploration of the Room of Requirement, where he collected many valuables next to the books, and how he managed all under Dumbledore's large nose, which left Sirius in stitches at the sneakiness of his godson. He already knew about the basilisk sale of course.

* * *

 **Okay, one more chapter, then this story is finished. Until next week.**


	8. Curses really don't play well together

**Thank you for following this story. This is the last chapter. Enjoy.**

* * *

 **Curses really don't play well together**

Snape stood inside the meeting room where the Death Eaters had been called by Voldemort. He knew that the snake needed to die for the monster that had taken Lily from him to be mortal once more. Bill Weasley had been the one to clue him into the secret how Voldemort had survived the rebounding killing curse. He had also given him several options of how to kill the snake for good and leave Voldemort fully open to the clash of the curse of the unicorn blood and the one from the horcruxes. Snape was much more in favour of doing things this way than basing their whole hope on Potter, no matter how much of a sneaky and intelligent boy he had proven to be.

The news about his acing sixteen OWLs and fifteen NEWTs had spread via the Daily Prophet, how could it not when it concerned the public's golden boy? He didn't think the boy was anything special though, despite his results. While even he wouldn't claim that Potter had cheated, as he knew how thorough the DME was with the enchanted anti-cheating equipment for the exams and making sure the students couldn't look things up while being on the loo, he still wouldn't admit that Potter might be up to the task put before him. Not to mention that he would much rather have revenge against Lily's murderer on his own than letting Potter get the glory again.

It might get him killed, which he didn't want, but if it happened, he would be free of the cursed life he led ever since he pushed Lily away over the torment from Potter senior and his friends. In his opinion, the brat had done him a favour, should he survive this. He would be gone from the castle and wouldn't torment him with his looks. So much like his cursed father.

Observing closely, he could see that the body of the man he had to call master wasn't looking well. Bill Weasley had been right in his estimation about the two curses running havoc against each other. Without the soul leech, he really had wanted to deck the headmaster after hearing what exactly had been contained in the infamous scar, supplying him with Potter's untainted magic to balance the two curses, as Potter's soul hadn't sinned like the Dark Lord's, even if Snape was convinced that there was lots of material that the brat should have been punished for harshly, didn't happen anymore.

The body that was a construct of a magical ritual of doubtful power, after all, Pettigrew and a muggle had supplied parts of it, and to face it, Pettigrew was weak, was deteriorating with each passing day. Snape knew that the inner circle's personal healer had been called to see the Dark Lord, but of course he hadn't told them anything, but he looked worried. He then concentrated on the Dark Lord starting to speak.

"My loyal servants, we will soon strike in force to show the people of wizarding Britain who is the real power in the country. People will fear us again, we will remind them that the terror they experienced in the seventies hasn't died a silent death, when they claimed that a baby could fully defeat me, the most powerful wizard alive. I read about the amusing results of Potter in the Daily Prophet, but even then, a NEWT level teenager, one that hasn't had his fourth stabilising boost of magic against Lord Voldemort?" He chuckled, and some Death Eaters fell in.

"The light side is deluding itself. Potter has only been lucky before. Some skill was there as well, otherwise the prophecy wouldn't have made any sense after all, but I have decades of experience and powerful rituals to make me stronger on my side. I defeated death, as I proved when I returned from the ghost-like existence that the ancient protective magic of Lily Potter sent me into. I am more powerful than ever before, as my plans worked out perfectly."

Snape knew that the Dark Lord was lying. His magic was getting weaker, but he wanted to hide that fact to both his followers and his enemies alike. Either side would be prone to get rid of him. It wasn't as if the dark side followed him out of devotion, except for nutcases like Bellatrix, but for the promise of power. Should the Dark Lord not be up to the task, they would attempt getting to their goals in other ways. He expected some infighting over the remaining cake, once the Dark Lord was taken out by the battling curses. But, and here it was very probable that Amelia Bones would succeed, they would have a hard time in gaining any kind of powerful positions or actual power in the country. Bones, contrary to many other politicians, couldn't be bought, and Scrimgeour, no matter if his political ambitions were greater than hers, couldn't either.

Snape was just glad that Dumbledore's protection was keeping him safe at Hogwarts. He wouldn't want to get into their line of targets. They would take out the trash this time around, which they had been blocked from in the early eighties, when they had still been aurors. As he was known to be Dumbledore's spy, he could watch from the side-lines and take as much as he could from the results. He wasn't a Slytherin for nothing after all. He continued listening to the supposed motivational speech of the shadow of a man that would soon be a bad memory. He only needed to get that snake and then the bastard should be mortal again.

* * *

Sirius sat at the meeting of the Order, listening to a report from Tonks about the recruitment of aurors being increased, now that it wasn't blocked by the Minister's office anymore, when Snape stumbled into the meeting, bleeding from several deep wounds.

"Severus, what happened?" Dumbledore exclaimed.

"The snake is dead," Snape brought out and collapsed on the floor.

Molly Weasley and Emmaline Vance, the two with the greatest knowledge of healing, were at his side immediately and started casting spells, but the wounds didn't want to close.

"The wounds are cursed!" Molly declared terrified, "I don't know what kind of curse and there also seems to be poison at work."

"Could he have been bitten by the snake, like I was, when it attacked me at the entrance of the DOM?" Arthur Weasley asked.

"Very much possible. That means the wounds will continue bleeding and refuse to be closed. Shit, I need blood replenishing potion at once," Emmeline shouted, which had Fred Weasley run out of the room.

Fred and George had been accepted as members of the Order of the Phoenix after graduating from Hogwarts. They had started their joke shop, even if Molly wasn't very happy about it. At least, it seemed that the shop was going to be a success, as they had several branches of products that were very much top-sellers, like their defence line, which they accredited to being made possible thanks to Harry's teaching.

Fred returned about two minutes after leaving with a box full of different kinds of potions.

"I brought George and my emergency stock of potions. This is the blood-replenishing potion," Fred thrust the vial into Emmeline's hand.

She spelled it into Severus stomach, which bought them some time, but the wounds refused to be closed. They battled for his life for an hour, but then they lost, as the man lost his blood faster than any potion could restore it. The Order members were sombre at the death of one of their own.

"This is a huge loss for the light," Dumbledore stated after a while, "Severus will be remembered for his great sacrifice, which brought us the final step closer to the ultimate defeat of Voldemort."

"True," Bill Weasley agreed, "We can only hope that it was the last one."

"What are you talking about?" Molly demanded to know, shocked by the death she had witnessed just now.

"Voldemort used very dark magic to prevent his death, Molly. I kept the information limited to the group tasked with destroying the parts that anchored the dark magic to this plain of existence, to prevent that the enemy found out what we were doing, as it could have ruined all our chances of succeeding," Dumbledore explained, "I won't tell you who was involved, but, if we are right, the snake should have been the last anchor of the magic."

"And, if it was the last anchor," Bill continued, "The two battling curses he has on his soul will destroy his body without any of us having to risk our lives in the process. Once he is gone, we still have to take out the Death Eaters, to prevent that they can get away with flimsy apologies again. Thankfully, we have Amelia Bones at the head of the DMLE now, and she is very much in favour of dosing them all with veritaserum to get the full truth out of them."

"You know about this, Bill?" Molly asked annoyed.

"I was consulted for my knowledge of curses and curse-breaking, Mum. And I promised to not tell anybody outside of the team. This would ensure that nothing got into the wrong hands," Bill replied.

"So, we just wait now?" Tonks asked frowning.

"No, we continue countering the actions of the dark side," Sirius objected, "We know the names of many Death Eaters and our goal always has to be to bring them all to justice, get them locked away for life at Azkaban. If Voldemort, as we suspect, is now getting weaker with each day, they will have to act without him present. Still, they are very dangerous in their own right. Our best chance will be to set up ambushes where we can and possibly kidnap them when we have a chance. It would be a good idea to also use veritaserum on each of them to find out the names of all the other Death Eaters they know, next to plans that they have been told about. If we act now, when they have only just begun to act openly, we can prevent that this war will get out of control. They have already caused a lot of damage and death, but we can still stop them from taking over."

"Sirius is right," Remus confirmed, "We need to act. But this poses another problem. Didn't you plan to let Severus take over DADA at Hogwarts, to get rid of Umbridge, Albus?"

"I did," Albus sighed, "I have managed to get Horace Slughorn to agree to come back to teach Potions, which should be a great advantage for our students, not to mention that he can probably confirm some information I have been trying to collect to win this war. While he wasn't too happy that Harry wouldn't be at the school anymore after reading about it in the Prophet, the safety aspect of the school convinced him to still do it. This will be a problem, as the DADA post is ridiculously hard to fill."

"Well, I have my trial in four days. It is a formality to get me cleared of all charges," Sirius commented, seeing his chance to easily get the position he wanted.

He had sneaked out of Grimmauld Place regularly to use the room to the fullest advantage, under the cover of being out to prepare more safe houses and collecting information. He was ready for the DADA mastery tests, if he got about one more month of practice in, which came down to about five days in real time. He had remembered much more than he had thought he would during the time he had already been in the Room of Requirement, probably because he hadn't been idle when he was at Grimmauld Place.

"Once I am cleared, I can take over as teacher for DADA. We need to ensure that a competent teacher is present at Hogwarts next year. I can take most of Remus' teaching plans from the year he taught there and go from that point on. That way the Ministry can't use the still active law that Fudge got passed last summer to send another idiot to teach. And, if everything goes well, I can even do it as a master of the subject. I have been working on the material while I couldn't leave the house, as I had nothing better to do," He explained his level away, "The next mastery exams are in September, and if you, Albus, sponsor my entrance, as you have masteries in Transfiguration and Alchemy yourself, then we could take away any arguments of nay-sayers."

"That is a great idea, Sirius," McGonagall commented, "And you are right, you only need sponsorship of a master, not of a master of the subject you want to test in, to be accepted for the tests. As far as I know, the test will be held in the middle of September, thus, if the trial doesn't take longer than normal, meaning one day, you could hand in your application for the test the same day, and would be within the one-month that you need to apply before the test takes place."

"I agree. You would do a proper job at teaching the students DADA. You were always one of our best fighters in the first war," Moody nodded, "Even if Voldemort really dies, as you said, the Death Eaters are still problems and the students can't be easy prey for them. Many of them were nearly as bad as Voldemort during the first war."

"Thank you for the offer, Sirius. Once the trial business is over, we will proceed that way. It will certainly leave me more time to work on other things. I have to admit, it gets tedious having to find a new teacher for the same subject year after year," Dumbledore sighed, "Then all that's left to do is giving poor Severus an appropriate funeral. He deserved that much."

"He does," Kingsley agreed, "I didn't see eye-to-eye with him on many things, but he did risk his life to help our side. This is the least we can do after he died for our cause."

The others nodded solemnly. Not many had actually liked the unpleasant man, but they respected what he did to help their side win against Voldemort.

* * *

Harry listened to Sirius telling him about Snape dying during the most recent meeting of the Order.

"I see. I can't say I will grieve for him. Too much happened for that. I am sad that he died, as much as I would be sad for the death of any person, but I can't say I will miss him," Harry commented when Sirius was finished.

"Neither will I. I know he risked a lot to spy on Voldemort, but I will never get over my negative feelings for him. Too much happened in our past for that, as you said," Sirius agreed, "But one good thing came from it, I got the DADA job, which Dumbledore had wanted to give to Snape, which he hadn't told anybody before that point in time. Seems he convinced Slughorn to come back to teach Potions."

"Good thing I'm far away from that mess. Congratulations on your job. How did the training go?"

"Very well. I remembered more things than I thought I would and with some last-minute repetition, I will be ready for the test in September. I estimate after five days in the room, I would be ready. I will hand in my application for the exams the same day I'm cleared by the Wizengamot. And, as Albus finally has an urgent need for my being free again, not to mention that Scrimgeour and Bones aren't as stubborn as Fudge was, it will happen," Sirius explained.

"True. He dragged his feet in the matter far too long. Well, I'm going to continue my travels. I have heard about a great magical water park when I last visited the closest magical shopping centre and I want to see if it's really that good," Harry told him.

"Sounds great. I wish you a lot of fun."

"Thank you. I'll call you in at most two weeks, if you don't call earlier."

"That's okay. You're not a small child that needs constant supervision after all. I just want to make sure that you are okay during your travels."

Harry smiled. That was the great part about his godfather. He gave him the freedom he craved, but was there as backup, should he need him. He only wanted to be kept in the loop, outside of Harry's exact location that was, to know that he was okay. Harry could easily live with that. They said their goodbyes and turned the mirrors off.

* * *

Voldemort was seething. He had been hoodwinked by Snape of all people. But the traitor got what he had coming. He had found out from Wormtail, who he had sent out to spy for him, that Snape had been reported dead by Dumbledore. The reason of death was declared poisoning and him not getting to a healer fast enough. Well, it was poisoning from his dear Nagini, who the traitor had managed to kill, and himself showing his fury at the death of his familiar, not to mention the destruction of his horcrux. He didn't think that Snape would have figured it out, but thanks to Lucius' idiocy, Dumbledore might have managed to work things out. Lucius had used the diary in 1992/93 to have the Chamber of Secrets opened again.

He had shown the man exactly what happened if you failed to follow Lord Voldemort's orders. His son would pay the price for Lucius' arrogance and disobedience. Oh, it would be deliciously slow torture for the man. But Snape's treason cost them their best Potions Master. It was a pity that Snape had managed to get away far enough to activate an emergency portkey, undoubtedly charmed by Dumbledore, as it had enough power to get through the outer edge of the anti-portkey wards. Only Dumbledore could make portkeys like that.

Voldemort doubted that Dumbledore would find out how far he had gone on his path to immortality. He probably had deducted that he had three horcruxes, which was a powerful magical number. And, going by that theory, he would have found one other horcrux, if he risked having Snape attack Nagini. Even if Voldemort had to admit, if not for his mastery of Legilimency, he would never have seen the full plan before it was too late. Snape had imperiused a low-ranked Death Eater to do the deed for him. The man was to hit Nagini with a killing curse and would undoubtedly be killed for his action.

The problem was, Nagini, as his horcrux, had some of his abilities as well, and detected the deception, attacking the true traitor. She had bitten him twice, before Snape managed to cut off her head with his personal dark cutting curse. That was enough to kill even her. But Voldemort, who had seen everything through Nagini's eyes, had retaliated immediately, using his ability to apparate inside the wards he had powered, to curse the man while he was trying to get out of the anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards. A shame that it somewhat worked.

He wondered which horcrux could have become a target of Dumbledore. He doubted it was the locket in the cave with the inferi. That place wasn't known to anybody but him. Nobody knew that he had explored his powers by torturing some other orphans from his orphanage there. He had never spoken to anybody about that. No, the locket was one of his safest horcruxes. The diadem of Ravenclaw was also safe. Nobody but him had ever found that special room. Even if some students might have come across other manifestations of it, they wouldn't have realised its true potential. Only he had done that.

Bellatrix's vault was also safe. Dumbledore had no way to get in there, and Bellatrix had assured him that nobody but her and Rudolphus had access to it. And they were among his most loyal, refusing to deny their loyalty to him, rather choosing to go to Azkaban, when they failed to gain the information about his whereabouts from the Longbottoms. And nobody knew that he had entrusted the cup to Bellatrix, but himself and her. And she had sworn to never talk about the honour bestowed onto her. No, the cup couldn't be found.

But Dumbledore knew his middle name. It was very much possible that he had made the connection to the Gaunts. And he was old enough to have known about Marvolo Gaunt. Not to mention that there were public files about all wizarding families of the country at Hogwarts. It was how he had found out about his heritage after all. The ring was probably the other horcrux that Dumbledore had found out about. He would have to check if the ring was destroyed. Well, the ring also had a very nasty curse, one that not even he would be able to survive, should it latch onto him. Should Dumbledore find the ring, there was a high possibility of him dying from that. That would be a great development.

But before he trusted the trap, he would rather check and secure the ring, should Dumbledore still be in the dark. If only he wasn't suffering from whatever problem his body had. This had started shortly after the breakout of Azkaban. He suspected that some of the magic at the prison, which was caused by the centuries of being exposed to dementors, had been harmful to his new body. He didn't know if Pettigrew had messed up some part of the ritual, even if the memory he had forced the rat animagus to give up didn't show any sign of it, or if the components were simply too weak to stand up to the magic he used up to free his loyal followers.

No matter what, he needed a solution and he needed it fast. This felt similar to the echo he had felt when he had possessed Quirrell, when he had tried to gain the Philosopher's Stone. His body had also deteriorated fast. Perhaps he could buy himself some time with another dose of unicorn blood. That had worked once already after all. He would just have to see where to find unicorns, as the ones at Hogwarts would be hard to reach, as Dumbledore had increased security around the castle.

* * *

Dumbledore listened to the report of Firenze the Centaur, who had come as an ambassador of his herd. There had been an attempt to capture a unicorn by a group of dark wizards, but they had barely managed to drive them away and save the unicorn. Dumbledore was alarmed, this was way too similar to how Voldemort had used unicorn blood to keep alive in 1991/92, when he had possessed Quirrell. The question was, was his body already failing him this badly to resort to this drastic measure? It seemed like it, and it only enraged the centaurs more, who were already ready to go to war over the forest, as the Ministry under Fudge had reduced their territory greatly. This needed to be handled very carefully. He couldn't afford violent centaurs close to the school.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Firenze. I will tell you what I know. Currently, Lord Voldemort's body is battling two curses clashing and fighting for dominance. Due to the fact that he forced the former Professor Quirrell to drink unicorn blood to keep his deteriorating body from dying until he could gain the Philosopher's Stone from the castle, back in the schoolyear of 1991/92, his soul was placed under the curse that ingesting unicorn blood brings, as you know," Dumbledore explained and Firenze nodded, "Next to that curse, he also placed a horrible curse on himself by his dark magic rituals that he performed to achieve immortality. Due to the connection that he had with Harry Potter being cut off, for the protection of the boy, I can't reveal more here, but the cause for the pain young Harry felt whenever Voldemort was near him was eliminated without harm to the boy, he can't pull any untainted magic to himself.

"Curse-breaker Bill Weasley has predicted that this would happen, we just didn't expect him to again try to resort to drinking unicorn blood. I will immediately adjust the wards of Hogwarts to expand farther, about halfway into the forest. If you could relocate the unicorns into that area, they would be safe from further harm. It is a sacred duty of Hogwarts to prevent anything bad happening to those pure creatures."

"I see," Firenze commented, looking up to the stars, "Mars is bright. That will continue, but it's brightness can be dimmed if the right constellation appears on time."

Firenze, like all centaurs, gave his wisdom in astrologic riddles. Dumbledore did know enough to understand that the war wasn't over yet, but that there was a chance to end it, if things went the right way.

"My herd will bring the unicorns to the protected part, but you need to ensure that the spiders don't interfere, as their nets are located too close to the school to not interfere with the places where the unicorns go, and they wouldn't hesitate to take the unicorn foals, should they get too close to the nets," Firenze warned.

"I will have Hagrid take care of that," Dumbledore promised, knowing that it was too dangerous to leave the stupid acromantula colony that the half giant had allowed to be created stay like that.

He should have interfered earlier, but he didn't really see a reason for it. Well, If Hagrid didn't manage, he could take care of some of those spiders easily and harvest them for valuable ingredients. Hagrid didn't even need to know about it, until it was too late. But he truly couldn't afford to anger the centaurs more. While the forest was forbidden for the students to enter, Hagrid and previously Severus had always gone in there to gather potion ingredients and other things that the school used. If the centaurs fully closed the forest off to humans, that would come to bite them. Thankfully, he had always cultivated a good relationship with the centaur herd and could mitigate the damage that the Ministry had caused with their stupidity. It might even be possible to reason with Rufus Scrimgeour about taking the restrictions against the centaurs back. It wasn't as if anybody outside of the school went into the forest willingly after all, and they had always managed to arrange something with the centaurs.

At least he now knew that the plan was working, and Voldemort was getting weaker. Now they could only hope that the snake had really been his last horcrux, because then he would finally die when his body gave out. The thing he was wondering was how the prophecy played into this scenario. After all, it had said that Voldemort had to die by Harry's hand, and the reason why he was currently dying wasn't that. It was his horcruxes being found by a team from the Order and being destroyed expertly, next to losing the connection from the soul leech. He truly had to think more about this.

* * *

For the next two months, the Order of the Phoenix worked together with the Ministry of Magic, as Amelia Bones was merciless in persecuting Death Eaters, with the full backing of the Minister. No more bribery kept the guilty out of Azkaban and no more lies were accepted as truth in front of the Wizengamot. It might have something to do with Madam Bones performing the biggest spring cleaning in the history of the Ministry of Magic before she even got started on arresting people. She cleaned house without reprieve and the results quickly showed.

While the Death Eaters tried to bring their magical world back onto its knees with terror, they were countered quite efficiently. After Kingsley Shacklebolt had talked to Madam Bones, she had arranged with the new minister that every magical household would be equipped with emergency escape measures. Though, before that went ahead, she had her aurors checked, had the unspeakables checked and then all other vital departments of the Ministry, like the floo regulation office and the general magical law enforcement patrol. Too many had died by being cut off from escape by a malfunctioning floo in the first war, and Bones would be damned if she repeated the mistakes of the past.

Moody was a great help, as his eye could see through the fabric of the robes that normally hid the lower arms of witches and wizards. He could detect the dark mark on them, finding the most obvious spies, marked Death Eaters. After them, each department was checked for unmarked traitors and they were found, as none of them could battle veritaserum. It cut off a lot of power from Voldemort's side. The safe houses that Sirius had set up the previous year were now used as destinations for the portkeys. There were supplies for a month in each place, sufficient to feed about twenty people easily.

A short book on how to behave in case of an emergency that came with the portkeys was also given to every household, next to the Ministry setting up courses for anybody that wanted to participate, for very low fees, as they wanted as many people to participate as possible. These courses, after Madam Bones was told by her niece how efficient and well-working the type of teaching that Harry Potter had used the previous year at Hogwarts to undermine Umbridge had been, followed the concept of taking the practical approach in letting the witches and wizards of Great Britain learn how to properly defend themselves. It helped that Susan Bones, who had got an O in her DADA OWL thanks to Harry, demonstrated how good even a sixteen years old girl could be with the right training.

It certainly convinced many when she showed off her patronus, a fully corporeal fox. Most adults believed that the spell was very hard to learn. Well, it took determination and concentration, but all members of the DG had mastered the spell by the end of the year. It certainly helped with the problem of rogue dementors that had started breeding all over the country.

At Hogwarts, Sirius had been greeted by the students with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he had been seen as a deranged criminal for years since his escape, an image that was strengthened by Fudge, who blamed all kinds of problems that he couldn't deal with on Sirius. On the other hand, the Prophet had reported the gross miscarriage of justice against Sirius after the trial in August had been held. Most were outraged that a man had been sent to the dementors while being innocent, even without ever getting a trial, which every witch and wizard was entitled to. After the first few classes, they were convinced that it was a great development that brought him to Hogwarts though.

Sirius had talked to both Remus and Harry, who had taught for a year at the school respectively, even if Harry hadn't done so in official capacity and hadn't taught all students, only the majority, and had included their approach into his classes. He started the first-years with simple spells and how to use them efficiently, as they were just learning how to actively use their magic. Still, the more they practiced, the better they would become. As he knew that shield spells were too advanced for first years, he taught them how to dodge dangerous spells flying at them, by teaching them the paint ball spell, which was turned into a game of two groups trying to take out the other group.

It was very popular. The students playfully learned to aim their spells while on the move or stationary, and they learned to notice when spells were coming at them. The second years were taught shield spells and disarming spells, which were added into the game. He didn't want to risk having the youngest two years injured from his classes. Thus, harmless spells. The curriculum for the higher years was more intense. He taught the third-years how to deal with all kinds of magical creatures, like Remus had done, plus making sure that the basic five of defence, as he called it, meaning the disarming spell, the shield charm, the human revealing spell, the stunning spell and the tripping jinx were all mastered by them.

Fourth to seventh year included learning how to duel properly and higher-ranked spells. It was certainly very intense, but his homework was always based on practicing the spells covered in class. Some of the more academically orientated students, among them Hermione, complained that they couldn't show off their essay writing abilities, but Sirius didn't care. He was firmly convinced that essays never saved anybody in a battle, thus they weren't as important as spells being learned properly. To his dismay, he found out that Neville Longbottom had been forced to use Frank Longbottom's wand all this time, without any of the other teachers remedying that problem. NO wonder that he always had problems with his spell work. He had taken McGonagall to task for that, as she, as Neville's head of house, should have noticed that he didn't get a new and attuned wand when he started school.

A simple check of the student file told that much, and all heads of house were actually obliged to do so, as they had to apply the trace if a wand was inherited, to prevent that the Statute of Secrecy could be easily broken by a child that wanted to show off. Sirius took Neville to Ollivander the second day of school, as he had had the Gryffindors in DADA the first day, and Neville had finally got a proper wand that worked for him. His classmates had been shocked when his spells were suddenly much stronger than any of theirs. It had never been a problem of power for Neville, just that his wand didn't want to cooperate with him. Thanks to Harry, he had already learned a lot last year, but this year he shaped up to be one of the top students in DADA.

Sirius had also kept his promise to Harry to send him a vial with his memory of Hermione finding out about his perfect OWL and NEWT scores. The girl had been disbelieving and jealous. She couldn't understand how Harry had managed to deceive everybody at Hogwarts into believing that he was merely an average student. Ron had whined about Harry's performance and that he was now gone from the school. Especially as he hadn't managed to get his spot on the Quidditch team back, especially not as Cormac McLaggen had proven to be the superior keeper and Katie kept his arrogance in check. Cormac had played against Slytherin and Ravenclaw last year, after Ron had messed up horribly in the match against Hufflepuff, Angelina had also substituted the older boy in after about twenty minutes, as she had enough of Ron not managing to deal with the pressure of a match.

While the chasers had managed to keep the score fairly even, only once Ron was replaced, the team could concentrate on other things than intercepting the opposing chasers from their hoops, as Ron simply let too many quaffles through. Harry catching the snitch cemented the win for Gryffindor, but it had shown that Ron's nerves were detrimental for the whole team. Which meant, he was delegated to reserve keeper, with Cormac taking the starting spot from him. This year, Katie, knowing that Ron had performance issues all the time, had looked for a better reserve player and found a second-year, Alain Redstoke, whom she and Cormac, the only other returning player of the team, would train up during the year to take over for him next year.

They also looked for two new chasers and beaters, next to a seeker. It wasn't expected to have a big chance for the Quidditch Cup this year, as nearly the whole team had left the school last year, even if nobody had expected Harry's departure. Even if Fred and George considered it the best prank ever. It took some time to develop the blind understanding that the previous team had had.

Still, other houses had similar problems. They were going to fight to do well.

Sirius had passed his DADA mastery exams in the middle of September with great marks. They weren't perfect, but all in the range of what would be an Exceeds Expectations for OWL or NEWT students. Which meant, Sirius was now on the small list of masters in Great Britain. Hermione had to swallow her comments, as she hadn't considered Sirius that smart, as he had been a prankster in his youth at school. To now have it shoved into her face that pranksters like him could excel enough to achieve the coveted mastery of a subject didn't fit into her view of the world. Not to mention that Harry had told Sirius how she and Ron had spied on him on the orders of the headmaster, which meant Sirius wasn't very open to treating them any different than other students, no matter if Hermione had been greatly involved in his escape at the end of their third year.

And no matter who had asked, thanks to his occlumency and simply not knowing where Harry was, he didn't tell anything, not even what he might have deducted. In his opinion, a war should be fought by adults, not a boy that had recently turned sixteen. Training the magical youth to not be easy targets was important, but battles should be fought by aurors and other fully-qualified witches and wizards, not children. That was what their generation needed to get into their heads. Relying on one boy to save them again was the wrong way to go about things. No matter what Dumbledore might say, and what some woolly prophecy claimed.

* * *

Harry looked down from the head of the Statue of Liberty. He had travelled from Florida to New York, wanting to see many sights of the city. It was incredible what kind of things were out there, when you had the chance to travel where you wanted to go. He had made one stop at the building of MACUSA to get his apparition licence acknowledged. As he was sixteen, he had to do so, even if he had easily passed his test at the ICW branch in Berlin. It was great that the Room of Requirement allowed him to practice this highly useful skill. Apparating without a licence was too troublesome to risk.

While he had lost the trace, he had checked after getting his NEWT results, America had a different system that covered all witches and wizards under seventeen and registered their use of magic outside of Ilvermorny or Salem schools and if it was too close to any muggle settlements, they would immediately get visits from aurors. The separation of magicals and non-mags, as they were called in America, instead of muggles, was much stricter than in Europe, as here it was forbidden to even be friends with muggles and reveal magic to them. Harry could somewhat understand the weariness of the American wizarding world, as they had only just escaped a catastrophe in the 1920's, when an obscurial had killed several muggles and exposed the existence of magic to them.

Only Newt Scamander's thunderbird spreading a mixture that allowed to obliviate a whole city through the rain had saved them. Harry didn't want to get on the bad side of MACUSA and thus obliged the few laws that concerned his visit to the country. He registered his magical signature, showed his NEWT results to prove that he was allowed to use magic outside of school, even if he wasn't seventeen yet, and proved that he could apparate without trouble. He was given a stamped note of approval, which he could show, should he be confronted by magical law enforcement. And nobody would tell anybody in Great Britain where he was, as it wasn't their business. Not even Dumbledore.

The old man might want to control Harry, but he had a hard time convincing anybody outside of Europe of the necessity. Especially America was notorious for not accommodating British politicians' requests without good reason. Well, Harry used his proper being registered now to travel around without problem. While his animagus form was great and allowed him to get away from a spot in a pinch easily, when apparition wasn't an option, there were wards that prevented it after all, but nearly nobody warded against animagi, it was more exhausting to travel that way, if he had to cover long distances.

With apparition, he could disappear from one spot and reappear at another, far away spot in seconds. That made travelling so much more comfortable. And he wanted to see as much of the world as he could fit into his free time. He would make time to revise before his mastery tests, but otherwise, he would enjoy himself as much as possible.

* * *

It was official, Voldemort was dead. It had taken about six months for his body to fall prey to the clashing curses, but all captured Death Eaters that had been present, had reported the same. He had been too weak to leave his bed for the last week or so and had then had his body fall apart in agony. The remaining Death Eaters had tried to escape, as they didn't think that they could win the war without their leader, but the DMLE had worked properly this time around. They had caught up to them and taken them into custody, often after big battles. It hadn't been easy, not by far, but they had by now captured about a third of the Death Eaters they knew about. It would take longer to get them all, but the ones that they had caught were now back at Azkaban, which wasn't under the oppression of the dementors anymore, as they had deserted.

Instead, the prisoners got a runic array tattooed onto their shoulders, which drained them of their magic, which was then stored in special crystals. Sirius had found the solution in a book the Room of Requirement supplied for him, when he asked for ways to prevent dangerous criminals escaping prison without dementors to guard them, or executing them, which wouldn't gain a majority vote by the Wizengamot anyway. It was an ancient way, before dementors had been used. Still, it worked very well, and prisoners like the Lestrange brothers, Bellatrix had been killed in the battle to capture them again, were now nothing better than squibs, which had them rage against their cell's bars. Still, they didn't pose a danger to the public anymore, which was all that counted.

The method was now used for all prisoners, as, once the crystal was broken, the magic would return. Meaning, those that had to stay certain periods of time at Azkaban, would get their magic back after they were done with their sentence. Like those that had supported the dark side from the background but hadn't committed the worst kind of crimes. Like spies, who normally were sent there for fifteen years before they were allowed to leave again, still under observation though.

This time around, the Ministry wouldn't repeat their mistakes of the past. Not after the thorough cleaning of the ranks that had been performed on orders of Amelia Bones. Thanks to martial law, she managed to get around obstacles that had previously prevented that everybody was forced to take veritaserum. No blood status helped those trying to escape the measure. They were questioned, they were convicted if they had committed crimes of any kind and they were sent to Azkaban for them. Those that had only done things like accepting bribes were fired and forced to pay fines. But Bones was determined to not give the rot another chance to suffocate the ability of the Ministry to actually act.

As a side effect, the Ministry had a lot of positions open. Many departments lost their heads and had to be replaced on short notice. Many that had applied for jobs in the years before, but had been rejected, got new chances to work for the Ministry. And, as the aurors had taken out the worst bigots, as they regularly supported the goals of Voldemort, the hiring policies didn't exclude muggleborns and halfbloods on principle now. Many that had the required qualifications in the past that were passed over for purebloods with worse marks in their NEWTs were now getting the jobs they had wanted before.

While it would take time for change to really sink in and the biased laws got abolished, it was a good start. The public was just glad that Voldemort hadn't attacked as often as he did during the seventies, but that was mainly due to him first acting from the shadows, and then the time he could still act being short. The public wasn't told what had exactly happened, as they might have done the stupid thing and claimed that Harry Potter was the main reason for the newest and permanent fall of Voldemort. Instead the official statement was that a team of specialists had worked on determining how Voldemort had managed to cheat death in 1981 and once they knew, they took the steps needed to undo that part.

Once that was done, he fell to his own stupidity. It was decided that it wouldn't harm anybody if they explained the curse of drinking unicorn blood again. It would serve as a lesson for dark witches and wizards everywhere to leave those pure creatures alone. Some people had found out that some unicorns had been slain in 1991 and 1992 in the Forbidden Forest, but the reason hadn't been announced. Now it was 'confirmed' that it had been Voldemort trying to regain a body even back then, but he had been chased away from the forest before he could succeed. Nobody was told about him possessing Quirrel.

And it wasn't hard to believe that with a magically created body, once his magic to keep him from dying was gone, the unicorn curse would mess up this body even faster than it would do with a normal body. That was all people were told, as nobody wanted to spread the information about horcruxes.

Demands of Harry being brought back from Dumbledore were ignored by Sirius, who repeatedly told the old man to leave his godson alone, as he had no reason to always want to control him. Voldemort was gone, his minions arrested and in prison and Harry was more than capable of looking after himself. Dumbledore didn't like being told no, but nobody would support his demands. He was asked to willingly step down from his positions, one after the other, when it became clear that his mind wasn't as clear as it needed to be for him to actually get the job done anymore. Many brushed it off as the exhaustion of the events of the past finally catching up to him. Nobody degraded him, but the common consensus about him was that he was simply too old by now, too worn out, to keep working like he did in the past. He had earned his retirement and through constant pressure, after three years, he had to give up the last position he held onto, that being headmaster of Hogwarts.

He was still invited to visit regularly and give some lectures about special parts of Transfiguration for advanced classes, but he left the spotlight.

* * *

Harry grinned at the examiners at the Magical Mastery Committee of MACUSA.

"You again?" asked the lead examiner annoyed.

"What can I say, I missed you?" asked Harry cheekily.

"You already have four masteries. How many more do you want? Isn't it getting boring to you?" threw the examiner back.

"Never," replied Harry, "But I'll be nice and give you a break. After the two I came for this time, I will not attend the next exams in six months. Perhaps the ones after that, but I haven't yet decided if I want to do more masteries. Though the idea of having seven of them is tempting."

"Which ones this time? You already took Defence Against the Dark Arts and Duelling one year ago and then added Charms and History of Magic six months ago," grumbled the man.

"This time I'm here for Transfiguration and Ancient Runes," declared Harry.

"And which one is the seventh you are thinking about on top of that?" the man wanted to know.

"Warding," answered Harry.

"At least that fits into the theme you have going on," sighed the man, "You know the drill, Mr Potter."

"That I do," nodded Harry and went to the next table to have his wand inspected, next to letting the healer perform diagnostic charms to prove he hadn't taken any potions or performed spells to cheat on the exams.

Harry had gained his first four masteries easily enough. He had decided to sit them in New York, where the main branch of MACUSA was located. They had a second one in Los Angeles, but he had liked the examiners here the first time, hence he came back. With apparition, it wasn't a chore after all. The master he had got to sponsor his first exams had been very happy to hear that he had gained the equivalent of Outstanding with Distinction for Defence and Outstanding for Duelling.

After that, he didn't need any more sponsors for his tests, which had at first surprised the examiners, but there were no rules forbidding it, thus he got his will and was tested the second time, and now the third time. The tests were exhausting, but so worth the effort. So far, his achievements hadn't been promoted outside of the United States, but it was only a matter of time until that happened. With his fifth and sixth masteries, he would bet that the news would swap over to Europe. He didn't care. Nobody could order him around anymore and he knew that most wouldn't try here.

He still hadn't taken up a job, he wanted to wait until he had the last masteries he wanted before thinking about it, and he was more than financially secure to ignore the things others passed on to him via Sirius, who still taught DADA at Hogwarts. To his godfather's surprise, he was actually a great teacher and his students loved him. Thanks to the curse breaking, he didn't even have to keep the amulet on all the time anymore and could enjoy his job until he felt it was enough, but so far, he didn't feel like that.

Harry wished him the best and they still talked at least every two weeks on the mirrors. Sirius kept Harry informed about what was going on in Great Britain and Harry had been very relieved when he heard that Voldemort was dead, and he was free of the shadow that had hung over his head all his life. Maybe, in a few years, he would go and visit his home country. But he felt great being out in the world and doing what he wanted, with no so-called responsible adult imprisoning him again. Harry hated being forced into a role he didn't support. And, as he was gleeful to point out to Sirius, he hadn't been needed to kill Voldemort, that had happened without him actively doing anything. There was no Boy-Who-Lived this time around, just a curse running its course, next to the right people destroying horcruxes before it happened.

The old man had been wrong and while Harry wanted to shout at him and rub it under his nose at the same time, he felt it was best to stay away until Dumbledore had got his head around the idea that he had been wrong about things. Though, even if he wouldn't know it, he would never see Dumbledore again, as the old man would die peacefully in his sleep before Harry ever returned to Great Britain. Hermione and Ron had tried to send him letters, but after the first one from Hermione, who berated him for his actions, he hadn't opened any of them ever again. He couldn't care less that Dumbledore's two spies felt slighted by him. They weren't his friends and he owed them nothing. He did send a pointed letter to each of them, telling them that he had known about their actions from early on and that they were through.

Now that he didn't need to play a role anymore to not be found out by the old bastard, he wouldn't do so. He never asked Sirius about them, and he only mentioned them in passing, like in that they had passed their NEWTs at Hogwarts, but that nobody there could beat his scores and wouldn't for a long time. Well, Harry would enjoy his life. He definitely deserved it and who knew? Perhaps some new adventures that he chose for himself to get into would come up. At least this time, he was properly prepared for anything that could cross his path.

 **The End (of this story :) )**


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